Samhwa Mission Station

History & origins

The Guide to the Catholic Church in Korea records April 25, 1958, as the establishment date of Samhwa Mission Station. Official directory information and the Catholic Encyclopedia of Korea also give the same date for the establishment of Bukpyeong Parish in Donghae. The available public sources do not show whether this date marks the very first gathering of Catholics in Samhwa or the formal organization of the mission within the new parish structure, but they do establish that Samhwa has been recorded as an official mission community from 1958.

Bukpyeong Parish later became part of the Diocese of Wonju in 1965 and expanded its pastoral network as the Donghae area industrialized and its population grew. The Catholic Encyclopedia records that a hall for Samhwa Mission Station was built on November 21, 1978. This provides a concrete milestone showing that the community had become an established local mission with a dedicated space rather than a temporary gathering.

Samhwa remains listed today in the official mission-station directory of the Diocese of Wonju. The documented history therefore runs from the 1958 establishment record, through diocesan changes shared with Bukpyeong Parish, to the construction of the mission hall in 1978 and the continued existence of the mission today. Later changes of territory or renovation are not inferred without evidence; the central fact is the long continuity of a local community within Bukpyeong Parish's pastoral network.

The current directory for Bukpyeong Parish records one mission station, and the Catholic Encyclopedia identifies that mission as Samhwa. The connection between the 1958 establishment record, the construction of the mission hall in 1978, and its present official listing makes Samhwa a concrete sign of the long continuity of Bukpyeong Parish’s local pastoral network. The sources do not provide a continuous record of every Mass schedule or personnel change in the intervening years, so such details are not included.