I was in Hwacheon on Sunday, but on the way back to Seoul, I stopped by the always-pleasant town of Chuncheon to check out Soyangno St. Patrick’s Catholic Church, an unusually designed Irish-built church that was registered as a cultural property a couple of years ago.
You will recall that I visited the church last year, when renovation work had just begun. Well, as you can see below, the renovation work has been completed… and in inspired fashion:
What a difference a year makes!
After his release from a North Korean prison camp, Bishop Thomas Quinlan, the bishop of Chuncheon, tasked fellow Columban Father James Buckley with building a memorial church for Father Tony Collier, Soyangno’s priest before the war who was executed by the North Koreans in the opening days of the conflict.
Buckley — inspired by a church he’d visited in Italy or France, I was told Sunday — decided to go with something a bit different. Rather than a Gothic, cross-shaped church, he build a semicircular one that resembled an unfolded Korean fan, covered by a dome. When the new church was completed in 1955 — I believe with material assistance from the US Army — it met with skepticism from parishioners, who wondered where the Irishman had put their steeple. They eventually learned to like it, though, as did the Cultural Heritage Administration, who registered it as a cultural property in 2005.
The beauty of the restoration work really becomes apparent in the interior. Gone is the ugly 1970s stuff — everything from the floor to the altar has been restored to its original state. You can also get an appreciation for the unusual design, with the pews circling the altar like an amphitheater.
Nice job with the stained glass — notice the use of Korean designs. Beautiful, beautiful work.
Unfortunately for the church, which sits on a hill overlooking the lake, the neighborhood around it is currently undergoing redevelopment, so the number of parishioners has dropped considerably, I was told. Once the redevelopment is complete, the church should fill up again, but it was a bit sad to see such a beautiful place so empty on a Sunday.
PS: On last year’s post on the church, I got an interesting comment from an American who was married in the church in 1982.
{ 7 comments… read them below or add one }
The structure and your photo work are both stunning.
Too bad it’s only on posts like this one that I get to be the first one to make comment.
this post is simply far too well-researched to be worth commenting on
The church is lovely, but the drop ceiling they’re using inside is absolutely atrocious. I’d bet there’s something spectacular hiding underneath those cheap asbestos tiles.
That is such a beautiful church. The pictures are nicely shot too.
The outside is unusual in scale too. Ditto to what Brendon said. Drop ceilings in such a church are just strange.
Robert,
Those pictures, especially the first three exterior ones, are wonderful.
The drop ceiling – I’d be curious as to how that came to be.
A great example of being innovative (for the time), and yet still being sane.
Usually, when someone goes about “renovating” an old Catholic church, usually Sister Sandals or Father Folk Guitar, it’s not renovated but “wreckovated.” This is one of the rare examples to the contrary. I love the altar rails. (Mr. Carr is right about the drop ceiling.)
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