According to oral tradition, the Missionaries were oppressed by the local territorial spirits.

[1] The history of the church started with the Mill Hill Missionaries who came to Penampang in 1886.

Dabak, Penampang, which is nearer to the sea, a river known as Moyog river and situated in a plain with rice fields with a low hill that is strategically located and suited for the building of a church.

This location is rather strategic since the locals who used the river as a mode of transportation would alight at Kasigui which was then the only and first town in the District of Penampang from the coast en route to the interior.

The foundation stone for the new church was laid during a special ceremony on 29 September 1936, the Feast of St. Michael.

Wachter had specially invited Brother Aegidius Leiter, the master builder, to be responsible for the building of the church.

The church also includes a cemetery, a bell tower, a grotto of Mary, the rectory, parish hall, and a religious centre.

[4] The church consists of a nave and two aisles, each with a flat wooden ceiling.

It consists of a concrete structure in the form of a tripod, topped with a tetrahedron-shaped roof.

At the foot of the bell tower is a spherical time capsule made of concrete that was poured on 31 December 2000.

A grotto of Mary is located on the south side of the church square.

First is a small park-like ground, directly located to the left wing of the church.

Anthony Paul Michael, containing the bones of the priest recovered in Tenom and the grave of Datuk Peter Mojuntin, a minister of Sabah, who died in the Double Six Crash tragedy.