Taejongdae Cathedral

History & origins

The history leading to Taejongdae Parish begins with a Catholic community in the Dongsam-dong area. The Catholic Encyclopedia of Korea records that, in the early twentieth century, a small Catholic village formed around descendants of martyrs who had moved there after fleeing persecution, and that the faithful traveled a considerable distance to Cheonghak Parish for their religious life. After the Korean War, population and Catholic numbers increased. In 1964 Cheonghak Parish purchased the site of the present Taejongdae church, and a Dongsam-dong mission station was established the following year. Devotional groups and evangelization efforts gradually laid the foundation for an independent parish.

As development and migration rapidly increased the population of Dongsam-dong, the mission station was raised to a parish on January 29, 1972, and soon renamed Taejongdae Parish. The existing facilities became too small for the growing community, so a new church and rectory were built and dedicated in 1974. The parish organized a pastoral council and lay groups while also developing ties with the local community and activities for people in need.

A community of the Sisters of Saint Paul of Chartres was established at the parish in 1980, and a new convent was built and blessed in 1984. Although the parish later experienced a period of difficulty in priestly staffing, it renewed parish life by strengthening small Christian communities and apostolic groups. By the late 1990s, it again placed particular emphasis on local evangelization, including street and home visitation.

As the church aged and the parish community grew, construction of a new church began in 2002. The new building, with one basement level and three stories above ground, was completed and dedicated in February 2003. It was praised for combining traditional church imagery with modern functionality and received the Gold Prize in the non-residential category of Busan's "Busan-style Architecture Awards" later that year. Taejongdae Parish's history is thus one of growth from a mission station to an independent parish, accompanied by the expansion of its liturgical space and pastoral structures in response to changes in the surrounding community.