St. Andrew Kim Parish’s golden anniversary is being celebrated as a “Festival of Joy,” but its story began quietly with a small group of immigrant families gathering for Mass far from home.
The Korean Catholic community in Metro Vancouver traces its roots to 1975, when roughly 25 Korean Catholic families began meeting for Mass together. What began as a modest prayer community gradually took shape as a parish, growing alongside Vancouver’s expanding Korean immigrant population.
The current church building in Surrey was completed in March 2003, and the parish’s sacramental life has been evident since then. From 2012 to 2019, St. Andrew Kim welcomed an average of 146 new Catholics each year, one of the highest baptism rates in the Archdiocese of Vancouver and a sign of steady evangelization and young families.
In 2017, one of its parish missions, St. Agnes Kim in Coquitlam, was granted quasi-parish status. The move followed a petition signed by more than 400 faithful seeking greater stability for Korean Catholics in the Tri-Cities. (A quasi-parish functions much like a parish but without its own dedicated facilities.) St. Andrew Kim has three other parish missions: St. Paul Chong, located at St. Mary’s Ukrainian Catholic Church in Vancouver; St. Peter Yu at St. Pius X Parish in North Vancouver; and the St. Andrew Kim Surrey Mission Community.
Today, St. Andrew Kim Parish continues to grow through active lay ministry and parish life. This vitality echoes the history of the Korean Church itself. When St. John Paul II canonized the Korean Martyrs in 1984, he observed that the Korean Church was uniquely founded and sustained by lay believers who endured fierce persecution, producing 10,000 martyrs in less than a century.
“The Korean Church is unique because it was founded entirely by laypeople,” he said. “This fledgling Church, so young and yet so strong in faith, withstood wave after wave of fierce persecution.”
That lay leadership continues in Surrey. The parish maintains strong lay involvement in ministries that include hospice, funeral, and bereavement support, catechesis, youth formation, and numerous prayer groups. Drawing from Korean Catholic tradition, the bereavement ministry incorporates the Yeondo prayer for the deceased, accompanying families through illness, death, and mourning.
St. Andrew Kim was notable not only for his martyrdom but also for being the first native Korean priest. Born in 1821, he was ordained in 1845 and returned to Korea to minister before being arrested, tortured, and beheaded at age 25.
In 2022, when the parish celebrated the 200th anniversary of St. Andrew Kim’s birth, Archbishop J. Michael Miller, CSB, remarked that today’s flourishing Korean Catholic communities with growing conversions and vocations are the fruits of the martyrs’ faith.
The Jubilee Mass marking that bicentennial drew an estimated 900 participants.
At the parish level, lay leadership remains strong, including ministries such as hospice, funeral, and bereavement support.
Anniversary events throughout the year will include a Jubilee pilgrimage, a 50th anniversary Mass in April, historical and art exhibitions, and a series of “Festival of Joy” gatherings, culminating in a closing Mass on December 28.
Among the central events will be the official 50th Anniversary Mass in April. A major festival will be held on June 6, featuring traditional Korean food, drinks, games, performances, exhibitions, and family-friendly activities. And a large golf tournament will be held on July 1, for which the parish is anticipating close to 150 participants.
Claudia (Sophia) Cho assisted with this article.
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