Saints Andrew Kim Taegŏn and Paul Chŏng Hasang

Martyrs of Korea
(died 1839–1867)

Saints Andrew Kim Taegŏn and Paul Chŏng Hasang are the leaders and representatives of the 103 Korean martyrs canonised by Pope John Paul II in Seoul on May 6, 1984, during his pastoral visit to Korea. Their story is one of the most remarkable in the history of the Church's mission in Asia, remarkable above all because the Christian faith was brought to Korea not by foreign missionaries but by Korean laypeople who encountered it through books obtained in China and then spread it among their own people.

The Catholic faith reached Korea at the end of the eighteenth century through the scholarly curiosity of Korean intellectuals who read Chinese translations of Christian texts. A lay community formed and sustained itself for decades without any priest, baptising converts and practising the faith from books alone. When missionaries finally arrived from China, they found a community of several thousand faithful who had maintained their faith through terrible persecution.

Andrew Kim Taegŏn was the first Korean-born Catholic priest, ordained in Shanghai in 1844 after a remarkable journey of thousands of miles through Manchuria to reach a seminary. He returned to Korea to minister to his people in secret, but was arrested in 1846 and beheaded at the Han River outside Seoul at the age of twenty-five. Paul Chŏng Hasang was a layman and government interpreter who worked for decades to obtain toleration for the Catholics of Korea and was executed during the persecution of 1839.

The 103 martyrs they represent span a century of persecution from 1839 to 1867 and include bishops, priests, laymen, laywomen, and children. They are honoured as the seed from which the flourishing Catholic Church of Korea has grown, and their feast is celebrated on September 20th.