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About this place
Bongsan-dong Catholic Church is a parish in the Namwonju district of the Diocese of Wonju, serving Catholics in Bongsan-dong and nearby residential areas of Wonju. The Guide to the Catholic Church in Korea lists the Holy Family as its patron. In the eastern part of the city, the parish is the local pastoral center where Catholics celebrate Mass and the sacraments, receive catechesis, and build community life. Its patronal identity places particular emphasis on faith lived within family and everyday life.
Bongsan-dong Parish was formed as Wonju's urban area expanded and a separate pastoral community became necessary. The number of Catholics increased around residential districts and the railway, and the new parish helped divide the broad territories formerly served by older parishes in the city so that pastoral care could be brought closer to local residents. Today the church is not simply a building but the community that connects Catholics in this living area with the liturgical and pastoral life of the diocese. The history section therefore follows naturally from this present role by tracing the urban growth and parish reorganization that led to its establishment. It is also helpful to understand the parish as the result of dividing pastoral care into more local units between Wonju’s older central parishes and its expanding residential districts.
History & origins
The Catholic community in Bongsan-dong grew amid changes around the Jungang railway line and the expansion of Wonju's urban area. The Catholic Encyclopedia of Korea records that Catholics began to increase around settlements near the railway in the early 1960s. The site of the present church had originally been acquired by Father Yang Dae-seok of Wondong Parish for a proposed middle school. When the school project did not proceed, the land was later designated for a church after the Diocese of Wonju was established in 1965.
As the Catholic population of Wonju increased and the need for more detailed pastoral boundaries grew, Bongsan-dong Parish was created. On May 26, 1972, areas were separated from Wondong, Dangu-dong, and Hakseong-dong parishes to establish the new parish. The Holy Family was chosen as patron, and Catholics who had previously belonged to several different parish territories were brought together into one local pastoral community.
The parish's foundation reflects both the physical expansion of Wonju and the pastoral reorganization of the diocese. Land once intended for an educational institution became a church site after the creation of the diocese, and population growth then led to the establishment of an independent parish. Bongsan-dong Catholic Church has continued from that 1972 reorganization as a local Catholic community serving the eastern part of Wonju.
The prehistory of the parish is also a sequence in which an educational project, the creation of a new diocese, and urban population growth converged on the same site. Land acquired for a school was redirected to church use as diocesan pastoral needs changed and then became the center of an independent parish created by dividing the territories of neighboring parishes. In this sense, Bongsan-dong’s history shows the institutional growth of the local Church unfolding together with the transformation of Wonju as a city.
Korean Catholic Places Encyclopedia
Bongsan-dong Catholic Church: history and architecture
Read about the place's history, architecture, people, and events in the Korean Catholic Places Encyclopedia.
Encyclopedia articles are currently available in Korean.
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Building information
- Passenger elevators: 0
- 2 above-ground floors · 1 below-ground floors
- Approved for use in 1982
- Total floor area: 1,757㎡
Building-register record · · Source
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Sources and updates
- Information Status
- Official
- Source
- Diocese source
- Data freshness
- Fresh
- Last updated
- Source
- Francisco Diary
Diocese
Wontong Diocese (Diocese of Wonju)
Official website: http://www.wjcatholic.or.kr
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