Wondong Cathedral

History & origins

Won-dong Parish traces its roots to Wonju Parish, established on August 17, 1896 after being separated from Pungsuwon Parish. It served a broad area around Wonju and became the center of the local Catholic community, functioning as the mother parish for numerous mission stations and later parishes. In 1913 Father Jaugey completed a Gothic-style church, which was dedicated in a ceremony presided over by Bishop Gustave Mutel.

The church suffered catastrophic damage when it was destroyed during the Korean War. After the war, Father Deary and the parishioners worked together on reconstruction, completing a new cement-brick church in September 1954. The church that stands today is the result of that postwar rebuilding. In 1957, when Hakseong-dong Parish was separated, the former Wonju Parish took the local name Won-dong Parish.

When the Diocese of Wonju was established in 1965, Won-dong became the diocesan cathedral. As Wonju city grew, new parishes such as Bongsan-dong and Ilsan-dong were later separated from it and its pastoral boundaries were adjusted. At the same time, the cathedral became more than an administrative and liturgical center: it also became a place where the Catholic community gathered to address public issues. A rally against corruption connected with Wonju Munhwa Broadcasting was held there in 1971, and after the arrest of Bishop Daniel Tji Hak-soun in 1974, a series of prayer gatherings made the cathedral an important site in the democratization movement of the 1970s.

Its architectural value as a well-preserved postwar reconstructed church and its association with the democratization movement led to its designation as Registered Cultural Heritage No. 139 on December 31, 2004. In 2016, for the 120th anniversary of the parish, the interior and exterior were restored with support from the Cultural Heritage Administration and Wonju City. The history of Won-dong Cathedral therefore condenses much of the modern history of Catholicism in Wonju: a late nineteenth-century mission center, wartime destruction and reconstruction, the creation of a diocesan cathedral, memories of the democratization movement, and the preservation of cultural heritage.