금촌 성당

History & origins

The Geumchon Catholic community developed as a mission under Munsan Parish and became an independent parish in the late 1970s. Donam-dong Parish's official history records that its parishioners supported construction of the church and rectory at Geumchon, with a groundbreaking ceremony held on August 27, 1977 in the presence of Cardinal Stephen Kim Sou-hwan. By the spring of 1978 the church was substantially complete and the community was waiting for its first parish priest.

The exact date of parish establishment differs between Church sources. The current Catholic Church Directory gives September 7, 1978, while the Korean Catholic Encyclopedia states that Geumchon was separated from Munsan Parish on August 18, 1978. Both sources nevertheless agree on the central fact that Geumchon became an independent parish from Munsan in 1978.

The safest account of its early history is therefore the sequence of construction beginning in 1977, completion of the church in 1978, and establishment as an independent parish from Munsan later that year.