Yongsomak Church

History & origins

The Catholic community around Yongsomak took root when Catholics who had fled persecution around the time of the Byeongin Persecution settled in the surrounding mountain region. Church-history sources state that Catholic families began moving into Yongsomak from 1893, and after catechist Choe Do-cheol Barnabas moved there, a thatched-roof chapel that included a room for a priest was built in 1898 and Yongsomak was organized as a mission station of Wonju Parish. In 1900 Bishop Mutel visited and blessed the chapel, while the growing community continued preparing for parish status. Yongsomak Parish was consequently established in 1904, and its first pastor, Father Poyaud, adapted a purchased thatched house for use as the church.

As the parish became established, it served as a pastoral center for Catholics scattered across a broad mountain region and neighboring counties, but the thatched church had clear limits for a growing community. Construction of the present church took shape under the third pastor, Father Chizallet. After arriving in 1914, he personally designed the church and brought Chinese craftsmen to carry out the work. The project therefore combined the participation of local Catholics with outside technical skill in the construction of a new brick church.

About a year later, in the autumn of 1915, a brick church of roughly 100 pyeong was completed and dedicated under the patronage of Our Lady of Lourdes. Its tall central tower, three-aisled plan, and wooden columns separating the nave from the side aisles illustrate the characteristics of Western Catholic church architecture of the period. The sequence from a thatched mission chapel to a parish and then to a substantial brick church remains physically and historically connected at the same site.

After decades of use, the church building was recognized for its historical and architectural value and designated a tangible cultural property of Gangwon Province in 1986; that protection continues under the present cultural-heritage system. The history of Yongsomak thus runs from the settlement of persecuted Catholics, through the formation of a Catholic village and mission station, the establishment of a parish, the construction of a modern church, and the preservation of that church as cultural heritage. It is a place where the religious history of a local community and the history of modern Catholic architecture in Korea remain layered together rather than separated.