Sujiri Mission Station

History & origins

The roots of 수직리 공소 reach back to the old Catholic villages of the Hwaseong area in the nineteenth century. According to diocesan historical material, the Apsil mission station was established in April 1894 under Gatdeungi Parish. The following year, when the community faced threats from Donghak forces, its lay leader refused to renounce the faith. The episode illustrates the pressure endured by the early community. By the early twentieth century, the mission station had grown into a community of several dozen Catholics and continued the Christian tradition of the Yanggam area.

The mission-station building changed several times. The first building, erected in 1894, was used until 1949. After the Korean War, a second building was made in 1953 using timber from a village hall. In 1972 the faithful themselves constructed another mission chapel, but land problems prevented long-term use. The community then raised a building fund and, with diocesan assistance, purchased the site used today.

Construction of the present mission station began around 1985, and it was dedicated on June 29, 1986, in a ceremony presided over by Bishop Kim Nam-su. At the time, the faithful also hoped that the mission station might eventually become a parish, but the pastoral organization of the area developed differently. After Hyangnam Parish was established in 2008, 수직리 공소 came under its jurisdiction.

Although parish status was never realized, the community continued practices such as the Stations of the Cross during Lent and regular mission-station prayer services. Its passage from a nineteenth-century Catholic village through repeated rebuilding to the present chapel shows how the perseverance of a lay community, even more than buildings or administrative status, sustained the local history of the Church. The need to establish a mission-station space on four successive occasions shows that, despite war, land problems, and local change, the community did not give up having a place for prayer and worship.