Ganghwa Anglican Cathedral, Anglican cathedral in Ganghwa County, Incheon, South Korea
Ganghwa Anglican Cathedral is a wooden church in Ganghwa-eup completed on 15 November 1900. Its exterior follows Korean hanok style with a tiled roof and traditional joinery, while the interior is laid out as a Western basilica. The building measures 10 kan east-west (about 18.2 m) and 4 kan north-south (about 7.3 m), and its main entrance faces west.
The building was constructed around 1900 under Bishop Charles Corfe's leadership and became the first Anglican church on the Korean peninsula. This founding moment marked the beginning of this faith tradition in the region.
The signboard above the entrance carries the Chinese characters 天主圣殿 ("Temple of the Lord"), and the exterior deliberately copies a Buddhist temple, with several gates entered in sequence, to soften resistance to a foreign faith. The first Korean Anglican priest, Kim Hee-jun, was ordained here in 1915, and his Korean-language ordination document is kept in the church.
The church stands in Ganghwa-eup, Ganghwa County, Incheon. Visitors pass through a sequence of gates before reaching the main wooden hall, whose entrance faces west in the European manner. The interior follows a basilica plan, with the long axis running east to west for about 18.2 metres and the short axis about 7.3 metres.
The timber came by way of the Yalu River, and a carpenter who had worked on Gyeongbokgung Palace in Seoul directed the construction. The church has its main entrance on the west side, in the European manner, while the interior follows a Western basilica plan.
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