The Church in Korea (1784-2027)

The Silhak movement and the arrival of Jesuit books through Beijing

In the 18th century, the Joseon dynasty (1392-1897) was a rigidly Confucian kingdom, closed to foreigners according to a doctrine of isolation called swaegukjeongchaek (“policy of closing the country”). The only official contact with foreigners is the annual tributary embassy sent to Beijing, whose delegates can visit, among other curiosities, the Jesuit churches of the Chinese capital. It was through this channel that from the beginning of the 17th century, the first Catholic works in Chinese entered Korea - notably the Tianzhu shiyi (天主實義, The True Meaning of the Master of Heaven) by Matteo Ricci (1603), a treatise on natural theology designed for the Chinese scholar and accessible to a Korean educated in the Sinitic classics.

During the 18th century, these books encountered an indigenous intellectual movement, the Silhak (실학, “practical knowledge”), made up of literati yangban (Korean nobility) disappointed by official neo-Confucianism and seeking a new ethical and political rationality. Several Silhak figures — notably the Namin school attached to Yi Ik (1681-1763) — are interested in Catholicism as a “Western doctrine” (Seohak, 西學) capable of renewing moral thought. It is not primarily a religious conversion: it is a philosophical interest in a coherent, structured doctrinal system, coming from beyond the Confucian world^[9].

Cheonjinam: the first study sessions (1779)

The founding episode takes place, around 1777-1779, in an abandoned Buddhist monastery at the foot of Aengjabong peak, in the province of Gyeonggi: Cheonjinam (천진암). The scholar Kwŏn Ch'ŏlsin (1736-1801) organized reading sessions there between a dozen namin scholars, among whom were four names destined to become the pillars of the Korean Church: Yi Pyŏk (Lee Byeok, 1754-1786), Yi Sŭnghun (Lee Seung-hun, 1756-1801), Jeong Yak-yong (Tasan, 1762-1836) and his brother Jeong Yak-jong (1760-1801)^[10].

Yi Pyŏk emerges as the intellectual and spiritual driving force of the group. Born in Pocheon into a military family, he refused a career in arms, passionately studied the Christian classics from Beijing and conceived the project of obtaining baptism by a European, he who could not leave the kingdom. The opportunity presented itself in 1783.

Yi Sŭnghun’s pilgrimage to Beijing (1783-1784)

In the fall of 1783, Yi Sŭnghun's father, Yi Tonguk, vice minister of Joseon, was designated to participate in the annual tributary embassy to Beijing. Yi Pyŏk asks his friend Yi Sŭnghun, who accompanies his father, to contact the missionaries and be baptized on behalf of the young Korean community. During a long stay in Beijing during the winter of 1783-1784, the young scholar met the last French Jesuits from the China mission^[11].

“Before his departure, Yi Pyŏk had recommended that he carefully seek out European missionaries, explain to them the situation of the Koreans and ask them for books likely to enlighten the young community.” — Charles Dallet MEP, History of the Church of Korea, Paris, Victor Palmé, 1874, t. I, book I, ch. III^[12]

In the spring of 1784, Yi Sŭnghun was baptized in Beijing by Father Jean-Baptiste-Joseph de Grammont (known as Jean-Joseph), former French Jesuit who remained in Beijing after the suppression of the Company (1773), still active at the South Cathedral (Nantang). He received the name Peter, in memory of the founder of the Church, in the explicit thought that the Korean mission, like the Roman mission, should rest on an indigenous “Peter”. He returned to Seoul in the summer of 1784 loaded with books, crucifixes and liturgical objects.

September 1784: birth of the first community

On his return, Pierre Yi Sŭnghun baptized Yi Pyŏk under the name of Jean-Baptiste in September 1784, in the Myeong-rye-bang district of Seoul (Hanseong). The two men then baptized several scholars, including Augustin Jeong Yak-jong (1760-1801, Tasan's older brother) and Kim Pŏmu (died in exile in 1786). The first Catholic community in Korea was born. Without the mediation of a single priest.

“The Christian faith was not brought to the shores of Korea by missionaries; it entered through the hearts and minds of the Korean people themselves. […] Through a first encounter with the Gospel, the first Korean Christians opened their minds to Jesus. Getting to know Jesus quickly led them to an encounter with the Lord, to their first baptisms, and to the desire for a full sacramental and ecclesial life.” — Pope Francis, homily of beatification of the 124 Korean martyrs, Gwanghwamun, Seoul, August 16, 2014^[13]

Very quickly, the community organized itself. In the absence of ordained priests, Yi Sŭnghun and the first baptized constituted themselves into a “provisional secular hierarchy”: they chose from among themselves a “bishop”, “priests” and conferred the sacraments according to what they had read in Chinese manuals. This self-established hierarchy will last two years (1786-1788). When a detailed memorandum finally reached the bishop of Beijing requesting validation, Mgr Alexandre de Gouvea OFM, vicar apostolic of Beijing, replied that these ordinations were void. Far from rebelling, the Korean community humbly accepts the correction, dissolves its pseudo-hierarchy, and begs to be sent a real priest^[14]. The episode testifies to the Catholic depth of a faith yet born without guardianship.

The funeral rites incident: the Sinhae persecution (1791)

The major test between the young Korean Church and the Joseon state came from an extremely sensitive doctrinal point: the Confucian rites honoring the ancestors, considered by the authorities one of the foundations of social order. In 1742, Pope Benedict XIV had published the bull Ex quo singulari, definitively condemning the Chinese rites and settling the rites controversy that had divided the Church for a century (see The Chinese rites controversy). The Roman decision, firm and unequivocal, applied to all of Sinitic Asia — China, Vietnam, Japan and therefore Korea.

In 1790, the Korean Catholic community consulted the bishop of Beijing to find out if they could continue to honor the ancestors according to the rites of Joseon. Bishop Gouvea responded negatively, in accordance with the Roman decree of 1742. This response arrived in Seoul in the summer of 1791 by travelers returning from the Beijing mission.

In the fall of 1791, Paul Yun Ji-Chung (1759-1791), a Catholic nobleman from the province of Jeolla, refused, upon the death of his mother, to organize Confucian funeral rites: he chose to bury his mother Christianly without an ancestral tablet (shinju). His cousin Jacques Kwon Sang-yeon (1751-1791) did the same. The two men were arrested, tortured, and ordered to recant. They refuse. On December 8, 1791, on the feast of the Immaculate Conception, they were decapitated in Jeonju: they were the first Korean Catholic martyrs^[15]. Paul Yun Ji-Chung will be two centuries later, on August 16, 2014, the first of the 124 beatified by Pope Francis in Seoul.

Father Jacques Zhou Wenmo, first priest in Korea (1794-1801)

The bishop of Beijing, informed by the repeated pleas of the young Korean Church, decided to send a clandestine priest across the Yalu River border. His choice fell on Father Jacques (Jacob) Zhou Wenmo (周文謨, 1752-1801), a Chinese priest trained in Beijing, fluent in classical Chinese — a learned language still understood by Korean scholars. Zhou entered Korea through Uiju in December 1794, disguised as a merchant, and reached Seoul in January 1795.

For six years, in strict clandestinity, housed with the widow Columba Kang Wan-suk (1761-1801) who was herself martyred, Father Zhou exercised the sacramental ministry with a community which increased from 4,000 to 10,000 faithful between 1795 and 1801^[16]. He founded the Myeongdohoe (명도회, Society for the Glorification of the Way), a lay catechetical brotherhood of which he entrusted the presidency to Augustin Jeong Yak-jong. It is the beginning of a structured catechumenate and an organized secular transmission.

Augustin Jeong Yak-jong and the first vernacular catechism in Asia

Augustin Jeong Yak-jong (1760-1801), elder brother of Tasan Jeong Yak-yong, is undoubtedly the first lay Catholic theologian in Asia. Around 1799-1800, he composed in Korean - not in learned Chinese - his vernacular catechism entitled Jugyo Yoji (주교요지, 主敎要旨, The Essentials of the Master's Doctrine). It is the first Catholic doctrinal treatise written directly in the language of the Far East by an indigenous person^[17]. The work, in two books, deals with the existence and nature of God, creation, fall, Redemption, sacraments and final ends, drawing on both Riccian natural theology and the Confucian Four Books whose vocabulary Jeong skilfully subverts to expound the Catholic faith.

The Sin-yu persecution (1801)

On July 10, 1800, King Jeongjo died. His successor Sunjo is only ten years old. The regency passes to the Dowager Queen Jeongsun, widow of King Yeongjo, deeply hostile to the “Western religion”. As early as April 8, 1801, an edict declared Catholicism “heresy” (邪學, sahak) and ordered its total extirpation. This is the Sin-yu persecution (신유박해, named after the year in the sexagesimal cycle).

In a few months, almost all of the lay leaders were arrested:

• Augustin Jeong Yak-jong, lay theologian, was beheaded on April 8, 1801 in Seosomun (Seoul);
• Pierre Yi Sŭnghun, first baptized, was beheaded the same day, 17 years after his baptism in Beijing;
• Columba Kang Wan-suk, who had sheltered Father Zhou, is executed in Seosomun;
• Augustin Yu Hang-geom (1756-1801), “apostle of Jeolla”, is martyred;
• Father Jacques Zhou Wenmo, understanding that his presence offered a pretext for the executions, voluntarily turned himself in to the authorities at the end of April 1801. He was decapitated in Saenamteo on May 31, 1801 — the first priest martyr on Korean soil, the first in a long series^[18].

The toll is massive. According to estimates from the MEP mission and contemporary research by Don Baker, around 300 Catholics were executed and several hundred others exiled or condemned to forced labor^[19]. Among the exiles, Jeong Yak-yong (Tasan), the philosopher-brother of the martyred Augustine, was condemned to eighteen years of exile in Gangjin (1801-1818): there he wrote his major work on ethical government, the Mokmin simseo (목민심서, The Heart of the People's Governor), which would permeate the Korean political thought until the 20th century.

The Silk Letter by Alexandre Hwang: controversy and tragedy

A controversial episode closed the year 1801. The convert Alexandre Hwang Sayŏng (1775-1801), son-in-law of the Tasan martyr Jeong Yak-yong, wrote on a large square of white silk, in extremely fine Chinese characters, a long confidential letter of 13,384 characters intended for the bishop of Beijing. The Baekseo (백서, 帛書, Silk Letter) details the persecutions and - a point which causes scandal to this day - requests the sending of a Western fleet to put pressure on the Joseon government and obtain religious freedom^[20].

The letter, intercepted in September 1801 by his messenger, sealed Hwang's fate: he was executed for high treason on December 10, 1801. Korean state diplomacy would brandish this document until the 19th century as proof that Catholicism was a foreign political threat, justifying the perpetuation of persecution. Today, historians carefully distinguish between the martyrs' courageous loyalty to Christ and Hwang's reckless political approach, which was not endorsed by either Rome or the surviving Korean community.

Paul Chong Hasang’s plea to the Pope

After the extermination of 1801, the young Korean Church found itself without a priest. For thirty years — from 1801 to 1831 — the survivors practiced the faith without any regular sacrament, with the exception of baptism, penance in extreme cases and marriage. This clandestine diaspora is structured by a few faithful families, including that of Paul Chong Hasang (1795-1839), son of the lay theologian Augustine Jeong Yak-jong executed in 1801. As a young adult, Paul Chong was hired as an interpreter in the annual tributary embassies to Beijing: he clandestinely met the bishop of Beijing there and begged him to ask Rome to send permanent priests.

Around 1825-1827, Paul Chong wrote a letter addressed directly to Pope Gregory XVI, transmitted by Beijing. This is the first epistolary contact between a Korean layman and the successor of Peter. The text, preserved in Roman archives, pleads for the creation of an ecclesiastical district specific to Korea, distinct from the too distant diocese of Beijing^[21].

The bull Ex debito pastoralis officii (September 9, 1831)

Rome’s response was positive. On September 9, 1831, Pope Gregory XVI promulgated the bull Ex debito pastoralis officii, which established the Apostolic Vicariate of Korea, detached from the diocese of Beijing. The new jurisdiction was entrusted to the Paris Foreign Missions Society (MEP), founded in Paris in 1658 and already established in Tonkin, Cochinchina and Siam^[22].

The first vicar apostolic appointed was Mgr Barthélemy Bruguière (1792-1835), titular bishop of Capse, who left Paris for Korea in 1833 but died of exhaustion on October 20, 1835 in Liaodong, without ever having set foot on the peninsula. His successor, Mgr Laurent-Joseph-Marius Imbert (1796-1839), titular bishop of Capse in his turn, arrived in Seoul on January 15, 1838.

The clandestine entry of the first missionaries (1836-1837)

Before the bishop arrive the first priests:

• Pierre-Philibert Maubant (1803-1839), MEP, entered Korea clandestinely via the Yalu River in January 1836. He is the first European priest to actually set foot on Korean soil since 1801;
• Jacques-Honoré Chastan (1803-1839), MEP, joined him at the end of 1836;
• Mgr Imbert himself arrived in 1838.

Everyone travels in “Korean clothing”, travels at night, sleeps with the faithful, celebrates mass in apartments with sealed windows. In March 1836, in Solmoe, Maubant baptized a fifteen-year-old child destined to become the first Korean priest: André Kim Tae-gon.

The martyrdom of Bishop Imbert and Fathers Maubant and Chastan

The Ki-hae (기해박해) persecution broke out in the spring of 1839, sparked both by political rivalries at court and by the denunciation of Catholics in Seoul. During the summer, several hundred Catholics were arrested. Mgr Imbert, denounced in his turn, makes a tragic decision: believing that by giving himself up he will save his flock, he summons Fathers Maubant and Chastan by letter, writing to them the formula which has become famous:

“Bonus pastor animam suam dat pro ovibus suis”^[23] (“The good shepherd lays down his life for his sheep”)

The three French people were arrested together in September 1839. On September 21, 1839, Mgr Laurent Imbert, Pierre-Philibert Maubant and Jacques-Honoré Chastan were decapitated together in Saenamteo, on the banks of the Han River, in Seoul^[24]. Three priests, including the bishop, executed on the same day: the Church of Korea loses its hierarchy in a few hours.

The fight of Paul Chong Hasang

Faced with persecution, Paul Chong Hasang, the layman who had obtained from Rome the creation of the vicariate, in turn prepared for martyrdom. Before his arrest, he wrote an apologetic memorandum addressed to the Prime Minister of the kingdom - the Sang-jae sang-seo (上宰相書, Letter to the Prime Minister) -, in which he demonstrated, in classical Chinese language and relying on the Confucian classics, that the Catholic faith is not hostile to the social order but fulfills it. The text is one of the earliest documents of Korean Catholic apologetics^[25].

Arrested in September 1839, ordered to recant, Paul Chong Hasang replied to his judges:

“I told you, I am a Christian, and I will be until I die.” — Saint Paul Chong Hasang, before the Seoul court, September 1839^[26]

He was strangled on September 22, 1839, the day after the martyrdom of the three French people, at the age of 44. His mother, Cécile Yu So-sa (1761-1839), aged 78, who had raised Paul since the death of his father in 1801, died in her cell three months later, on November 23, 1839. His sister Élisabeth Jeong Jeong-hye was executed on December 29, 1839. The entire family of the lay theologian Augustin Jeong Yak-jong was thus martyred over two generations.

In total, the Ki-hae persecution left approximately 130 martyrs identified, and according to MEP estimates several hundred other anonymous victims. 79 of them will be beatified by Pius XI on July 5, 1925, the first act of solemn recognition of the Church of Korea in Rome^[27].

Solmoe: birth into a martyr clan

André Kim Tae-gon (김대건, Kim Dae-geon) was born on August 21, 1821 in Solmoe (솔뫼, “the little pine hill”), in the province of Chungcheong-nam, within the Gimhae Kim clan belonging to the yangban nobility. His family is deeply Catholic: his great-grandfather Pius Kim Jin-hu was martyred in 1814, his great-uncle Kim Han-hyeon martyred in 1816, his father Ignace Kim Je-jun was beheaded in 1839 during the Ki-hae^[28] persecution. André grew up in an atmosphere of faith and permanent persecution, formed by his mother Ursule Ko, who would survive his entire family.

Macao, Manila, Shanghai: clandestine training

In 1836, ​​Father Maubant baptized André in Solmoe and discerned in him a priestly vocation. At fifteen years old, he chose with two other young Koreans — Thomas Choe Yang-eop (1821-1861) and Francis-Xavier Choe Bang-je (1820-1839) — to leave clandestinely for the MEP seminary in Macao. The journey lasted more than a year: crossing the Yalu River at night, crossing all of China, arriving in Macao in 1837.

Macao was then a Portuguese concession where the MEPs established their “Procure”, the bridgehead for all missions in the Far East. The three seminarians learned Latin, Portuguese, theology and scholastic philosophy there. The Opium War (1839-1842) between China and Great Britain disrupted their training: they were evacuated to the Philippines, to Lolomboy (Bulacan province), where the Dominican community of Manila welcomed them for a while before their return to Macao^[29].

August 17, 1845: ordination at Jinjiaxiang

After eight years of training and wanderings, André Kim completed his priestly preparation. On March 3, 1845, he was ordained a deacon by Mgr Jean-Joseph Ferréol MEP (1808-1853), third vicar apostolic of Korea. The return trip to Seoul first requires arriving in Shanghai to reach the peninsula clandestinely.

It was in the small chapel of Jinjiaxiang (金家巷), today in the diocese of Shanghai, that on August 17, 1845 — twenty-four years after his birth, nine after his baptism — André Kim Tae-gon was ordained priest by Mgr Ferréol. He is the first Korean priest in history. A few days later, in the same chapel, he celebrated his first mass^[30].

Mgr Ferréol, in the letter he then addressed to the Central Council of MEPs in Paris, expressed his joy and already his presentiment: he wrote that he had loved the young native priest as a father loves his son, and found consolation in thinking of his eternal happiness^[31].

Return to Korea and arrest

On August 31, 1845, André Kim, his bishop Mgr Ferréol and Father Antoine Daveluy embarked on a Korean junk brought back by the faithful, and reached the coast of Chungcheong in October. André resumes his secret ministry. For less than a year, he celebrated mass in Seoul, distributed the sacraments within the network of Catholic families, and prepared a specific project: establish a safe maritime route between the peninsula and Shanghai, in order to bring in missionaries and their correspondence more regularly.

On June 5, 1846, while exploring the area around Baengnyeong Island (on the western maritime border), he was arrested by government soldiers. His quality as a priest was immediately recognized. Taken to Seoul, he suffered interrogations and torture for three months.

The martyrdom of September 16, 1846 in Saenamteo

On September 16, 1846, at the age of 25, one year and one month after his ordination, André Kim Tae-gon was taken to the banks of the Han River, to Saenamteo - already the place of execution of Jacques Zhou Wenmo in 1801 and the three MEPs in 1839. In front of the gathered crowd, he was decapitated by the sword. According to tradition reported by the Christians present, he would have pronounced, just before the execution, these words transcribed by the missionaries:

“This is my last hour; listen to me carefully: if I have had commerce with foreigners, it has been for my religion and for my God. It is for Him that I die. My immortal life is about to begin.” — Saint Andrew Kim Tae-gon, words reported before his martyrdom, Saenamteo, September 16, 1846^[32]

His remains, abandoned on the banks of the river, were recovered at night by the faithful and buried discreetly. Forty days later, his bones were transferred to the Mirinae shrine (미리내, Anseong), where they rest today in a mausoleum that has become a national pilgrimage site.

The last exhortation to the brothers

In the weeks preceding his execution, from his cell, Saint Andrew Kim addressed to the community a final exhortation whose text, preserved in the MEP archives and inserted in the Office of Readings of the Universal Church, became one of the great spiritual texts of the Catholic mission in the 19th century:

“Dear brothers and friends, think and rethink this: since the beginning of time, God has arranged heaven, earth and everything; think why and with what intention he created man, each man, in his image and likeness. […]

I implore you: do not forget brotherly love, but help each other and persevere until the Lord has pity on us and removes persecution. […]

For us before long we will go into battle; I beg you to remain faithful so that we may find ourselves together in the joy of heaven.” — Saint Andrew Kim Tae-gon, last exhortation from prison, August 1846^[33]

This exhortation, read every September 20 throughout the universal Church for the liturgical memory of Saints Andrew Kim, Paul Chong and their companions, condenses Korean martyrial spirituality: perseverance, fraternal love, assurance of eternal life.

The turning point of Regent Daewongun

For two decades after the martyrdom of André Kim, the Church of Korea experienced relative peace under Mgr Ferréol (died at age 45 in 1853) then under his successor, Mgr Siméon-Francis Berneux (1814-1866), who arrived in Seoul in March 1856. Berneux estimated in 1859 the number of Korean Catholics at 17,000 faithful. He founded, in the lost valley of Pae-ron (province of Chungcheong), a seminary and a printing press publishing in Hangeul catechetical works which were increasingly widely distributed^[34].

This silent growth encountered, at the turn of 1865-1866, a radically new political climate. Since the death of King Cheoljong in 1864, his successor Gojong was only eleven years old: real power was exercised by his father, the regent Heungseon Daewongun (Yi Ha-eung, 1820-1898). The regent is initially not hostile: his wife Min was a Catholic catechumen, his adopted daughter Marthe baptized. Several of his advisors proposed using French missionaries as diplomatic intermediaries in the face of Russian pressure on Manchuria.

But the project failed in the winter of 1865-1866. The court of Beijing, traumatized after the Second Opium War (1856-1860) and the occupation of the capital by the Franco-British armies (October 1860), warned the Daewongun against any alliance with the Western powers. At the beginning of 1866, the regent abruptly changed his policy. January 1866: edict ordering the total extirpation of Catholicism.

The nine MEP martyrs in a few weeks

The great persecution Pyŏng-in (병인박해) begins with the arrest and execution of the bishop. On February 23, 1866, Mgr Berneux was arrested in Seoul. After two weeks of torture, he was beheaded in Saenamteo on March 7, 1866. He is 51 years old^[35].

The following days saw the fall, with incredible rapidity, of nine MEP missionaries^[36]:

Nine French priests executed in twenty-three days. Mgr Marie-Nicolas-Antoine Daveluy (1818-1866), titular bishop of Acones and coadjutor of Berneux, who automatically became vicar apostolic on March 7, was arrested four days later. On Good Friday March 30, 1866, at Galmaemot beach near Boryeong, he was beheaded with two confreres and two Korean catechists — Luc Hwang Sŏk-tu and Joseph Chang Chu-gi. Only three MEPs survived and managed to hide: Mgr Félix-Clair Ridel (who fled in July 1866 to Tianjin to carry the news), Pierre-Marie Calais and Charles-Stanislas Féron.

Jeoldusan, Galmaemot, Haemi: geography of mass martyrdom

Along with the missionaries, thousands of Korean faithful were massacred between 1866 and 1871. The overall toll is estimated between 8,000 and 10,000 victims by MEP sources, a figure that contemporary research by Don Baker considers defensible^[37]. The geography of this persecution still draws a spiritual map of Catholic Korea today:

• Saenamteo (새남터), on the banks of the Han in Seoul: place of execution of Zhou Wenmo (1801), the three MEPs (1839), André Kim (1846), Berneux and the first three MEPs of 1866. National sanctuary since 1981;
• Jeoldusan (절두산, “the hill of decapitation”): promontory on the Han, where many Catholics were thrown into the river with their hands tied, some after beheading on the spot. Older estimates range from hundreds to thousands of victims between 1866 and 1871, but the exact number of those executed on Jeoldusan alone is not established with certainty by the sources verified for this article: no precise figure is therefore given here^[38]. Museum and sanctuary erected in 1967 for the centenary of the persecution;
• Galmaemot (갈매못): Boryeong beach where Daveluy, Aumaître, Huin, Hwang Sŏk-tu and Chang Chu-gi were executed on March 30, 1866;
• Haemi (해미읍성): fortress-prison where around one to two thousand Catholics of the region were executed between 1866 and 1882 — buried alive, drowned or beheaded —, only 132 of them identified by name^[39]. It is in Haemi, in August 2014, that Pope Francis will meet the bishops of Asia;
• Mirinae (미리내): tomb of Saint Andrew Kim, discreetly transferred after 1846.

Diplomatic repercussions

The martyrdom of nine French citizens provokes a diplomatic reaction. Mgr Ridel, arriving in Tianjin in July 1866, alerted Rear Admiral Pierre-Gustave Roze, commanding the French squadron in the Far East. In the fall of 1866, Roze led the French expedition against Korea (Byeongin Yangyo), which unsuccessfully attempted to land on Ganghwa Island. The operation, poorly prepared, failed; it fuels the anti-Catholic propaganda of the Daewongun, which can now present the missionaries as advanced agents of foreign aggression.

According to a remark attributed to the regent at this time and reported by the Annals of the Propagation of the Faith (1867), the Daewongun is said to have judged it right to wash with blood the land stained by Westerners^[40].

The persecution continued until 1871, devouring three generations of Korean Catholics. When it died out, it was less by royal decision than by exhaustion: the community was decimated, dispersed, forced into radical silence.

The diplomatic opening and the treaty with France (1886)

The turning point comes from external diplomatic pressure. Under the Joseon Empire (1897-1910) then under the Japanese occupation (1910-1945), Korea was gradually opened to foreign powers. On June 9, 1886, the Treaty of Friendship, Commerce and Navigation between France and Korea was signed in Seoul. Article IX grants French missionaries the right to reside and travel in the kingdom. For the first time since 1801, Catholicism is legally tolerated^[41].

Growth is slow then exponential. 42,441 Catholics in 1900. 70,000 in 1910. First diocese of Seoul erected on April 8, 1911.

Pyongyang, “the Jerusalem of the East”

Paradoxically, it was in the north of the peninsula that Christianity experienced its most spectacular growth at the beginning of the 20th century. Pyongyang, the historic capital of Korea, became a Presbyterian and Catholic center of such vitality that it was nicknamed "the Jerusalem of the East". The Apostolic Prefecture of Pyongyang, created in 1927 and entrusted to the American Maryknoll Society, was elevated to an Apostolic Vicariate in 1939.

On the eve of the Soviet invasion of 1945, the Diocese of Pyongyang had approximately 50,000 Catholics and more than 3.6 million Koreans under its territorial jurisdiction^[42]. It is in Pyongyang that the center of gravity of the Korean Church of the 20th century could have developed. History will decide otherwise.

The first two beatifications (1925 and 1968)

At the magisterial level, the Roman Church recognized Korean martyrology in two stages. On July 5, 1925, Pius XI beatified 79 martyrs from the persecutions of 1839 and 1846 in Rome^[43]. This was the first collective beatification concerning East Asia. On October 6, 1968, Paul VI beatified 24 additional martyrs, all victims of the great Pyŏng-in persecution of 1866-1871, including Berneux, Daveluy, Bretenières, Beaulieu, Dorie, Pourthié, Petitnicolas, Aumaître and Huin^[44]. The ground was thus prepared for the collective canonization of May 6, 1984.

Bishop Francis Hong Yong-ho and the disappearance of the diocese of Pyongyang

The Soviet occupation of the north of the peninsula from August 1945, then the founding of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (September 9, 1948), inaugurated persecution for the North Korean Church which had no equivalent in Asia outside Khmer Rouge Cambodia. Under Kim Il-sung, Catholicism is, like any religion, designated as the “opium of the people” and an enterprise of systematic eradication.

On March 24, 1944, Pius XII appointed Bishop Francis Hong Yong-ho (born October 12, 1906 in Pyongyang) vicar apostolic of Heijō (the Japanese name for Pyongyang). Ordained bishop on June 29, 1944, Hong governed his diocese for barely five years. Arrested in May 1949 by the communist authorities, he disappeared without trial or official death certificate^[45]. He is 42 years old.

For decades, the Pontifical Directory continued to list him every year as living bishop of Pyongyang. On March 10, 1962, John XXIII formally established the Diocese of Pyongyang as a full diocese and confirmed Bishop Hong as its first residential bishop — a purely symbolic gesture, Hong having disappeared thirteen years earlier without leaving a trace. The year 1962 therefore does not mark the bishop's disappearance, but the canonical erection of the diocese. It was only in 2013, under Francis, that the Congregation for Bishops officially stopped mentioning Bishop Hong in the directory, recognizing his death as granted although the exact circumstances and date remain unknown^[46].

With him disappeared the twelve priests of the diocese, all arrested between 1949 and 1952, all presumed executed or dead in labor camps. The extermination of the Catholic clergy of Pyongyang is total.

Changchung Showcase Church

From the 1970s, the Kim Il-sung regime set up a religious propaganda showcase for international diplomacy. In 1988, during the Seoul Olympics, a Catholic church was built in Pyongyang in the Changchung district (장충성당). The building, completed in June 1988, is officially "the only Catholic church in the country". But it has no permanent priest: a South Korean or foreign priest must be specially authorized by the regime to celebrate there, which only happens on rare diplomatic occasions.

The Korean Catholic Association (북한천주교인협회) which manages Changchung is not recognized in any way by the Holy See. The rare Westerners who have attended liturgies in the church report having seen “a few dozen people” there, without certainty whether they are real Catholics or extras from the regime^[47].

A persecution ranked first in the world

According to the World Watch List index published annually by the Open Doors organization, North Korea is ranked first in the world for the persecution of Christians in 2025, with a score of 98/100 — a rank it has held almost systematically for more than twenty years, with a break in 2022 when it ranked No. 2 behind Afghanistan^[48]. Open Doors estimates the number of clandestine Christians** surviving in the country at **400,000, including approximately 50,000 to 70,000 interned in concentration camps (kwanliso) for religious reasons. The possession of any Bible, Christian teaching to a child or simple community prayer have been capital crimes since 1953.

The Diocese of Pyongyang remains sede vacante. Since 1998, the Archbishop of Seoul has held the post of apostolic administrator of Pyongyang, waiting for days that no one foresees coming.

Cardinal Stephen Kim Sou-hwan and the democratic test

In the South, the Catholic Church experienced prodigious growth after the Korean War (1950-1953). From 166,000 believers in 1953 it rose to 789,000 in 1970, to 3 million in 1990, to 5.6 million in 2020. Its moral figure of the 20th century is Stephen Kim Sou-hwan (1922-2009).

Born on July 2, 1922 in Daegu, ordained priest in 1951 during the Korean War, trained at Sophia University (Tokyo) then at the University of Münster (Germany), Kim Sou-hwan was named archbishop of Seoul in April 1968. On April 28, 1969, Paul VI created him cardinal at the age of 46 — he was then the youngest cardinal of the College^[49].

In the 1970s and 1980s, under the military dictatorship of Park Chung-hee and then Chun Doo-hwan, Cardinal Kim became the moral voice of nonviolent resistance. The Myeong-dong Cathedral in Seoul, its cathedral, was transformed into a sanctuary for pro-democracy demonstrators: hunger strike of 600 students in June 1987 after the death under torture of activist Park Jong-chol, celebration of the opposition Kim Dae-jung in 1976, union shelters. Cardinal Kim Sou-hwan welcomed the demonstrators and refused pressure from the regime: according to the next day's press account, he is said to have told the forces of order that they would first have to pass over his body, then over the priests and nuns behind him, before being able to reach the students sheltered in Myeong-dong^[50].

This moral stature prepares the democratic transition of the Sixth Republic (October 1987). When he died on February 16, 2009, 400,000 faithful paraded in Myeong-dong in front of his coffin. The Archdiocese of Seoul is carrying his cause for beatification: on July 5, 2024, it announced the nihil obstat of the Dicastery for the Causes of Saints, opening the diocesan phase of the process — Cardinal Kim has since been Servant of God^[51].

May 6, 1984: the canonization of the 103 martyrs by John Paul II

For the bicentenary of the founding of the Korean Church (1784-1984), Saint John Paul II undertook his first apostolic journey to South Korea (May 3-7, 1984). On May 6, 1984, on the Yeouido esplanade in Seoul, in front of approximately a million faithful, he canonized 103 Korean martyrs: 93 Koreans and 10 French missionaries (3 bishops and 7 MEP priests), who fell during the persecutions of 1839, 1846 and 1866-1871.

This is the first canonization celebrated outside Rome. The gesture is full of meaning: to a people who evangelized alone, to a Church born without a missionary, the pope comes in person to recognize the fruits of martyrdom. Among the new saints are André Kim Tae-gon (the only Korean priest in the group), Paul Chong Hasang (the lay leader), the three French bishops Imbert, Berneux, Daveluy, and many lay people from the three persecutions^[52].

“From young Pierre Yu, aged thirteen, to the venerable Marc Chong, aged seventy-two; men and women, clergy and laity, rich and poor, commoner and noble, many of them descendants of earlier, anonymous martyrs—all willingly offered their lives for Christ.” — Saint John Paul II, canonization homily, Yeouido, Seoul, May 6, 1984^[53]

The day before, May 3, 1984, the Pope had gone to the Jeoldusan shrine to pay homage to the martyrs of 1866 thrown into the river.

August 16, 2014: Francis and the beatification of 124 additional martyrs

Thirty years later, Pope Francis makes his own apostolic trip to South Korea (August 13-18, 2014), on the occasion of the VIth Asian Youth Day. The program is dense:

• August 13: arrival at Seoul air base;
• August 15 (Assumption): mass at the World Cup stadium in Daejeon for the Asian WYD; meeting young Asians at the Solmoe sanctuary;
• August 16: beatification of 124 martyrs at the Gate of Gwanghwamun, Seoul, in front of 800,000 faithful;
• August 17: meeting of Asian bishops at the Haemi sanctuary;
• August 18: Mass for peace and reconciliation at Myeong-dong cathedral.

The beatification of August 16, 2014 concerns Paul Yun Ji-Chung and his 123 companions, the first Korean martyrs of the period 1791-1888, all lay people except a few catechists. Paul Yun Ji-Chung, beheaded in Jeonju on December 8, 1791 for refusing Confucian funeral rites, became the “first official martyr” of the Joseon reign^[54].

In Myeong-dong, on August 18, Pope Francis devotes the homily to prayer for peace and reconciliation in the divided peninsula:

“This prayer has a particular resonance on the Korean peninsula. Today's mass is above all a prayer for the reconciliation of this Korean family. […] Jesus asks us to believe that forgiveness is the door that leads to reconciliation. The cross of Christ reveals the power of God to bridge every division, to heal every wound.” — Pope Francis, homily at Myeong-dong Cathedral, Seoul, August 18, 2014^[55]

Statistics 2025

According to official figures from the Korean Conference of Catholic Bishops (CBCK), Statistics of the Catholic Church in Korea 2025, published in April 2026: 6,006,832 Catholics as of December 31, 2025, or 11.4% of the population — the six-million mark passed for the first time^[56].

Fifty years ago (1975), South Korea had barely one million Catholics. Today, there are nearly six million, a multiplication by six in two generations. No other country in Asia has experienced such Catholic growth in the modern period^[57]. The Church of South Korea is today one of the most dynamic in Asia.

Korean cardinals and Lazarus You at the Dicastery of Clergy

Two active Korean cardinals illustrate the new place taken by the Korean Church in the Roman Curia:

• Cardinal Andrew Yeom Soo-jung (born December 5, 1943 in Anseong), archbishop emeritus of Seoul (2012-2021) and apostolic administrator of Pyongyang, created cardinal by Francis on February 22, 2014. His ancestors descend from the martyr Joseph Yeom Deok-sun, one of the first Korean converts of the 18th century;
• Cardinal Lazarus You Heung-sik (born November 17, 1951 in Nonsan), former bishop of Daejeon (2005-2021), prefect of the Dicastery for the Clergy since June 11, 2021 (taking office on August 2, 2021). First Korean to head a dicastery of the Roman Curia^[58]. Created cardinal on August 27, 2022 by Francis. Regularly mentioned among the Asian papabili during the 2025 conclave.

The current archbishop of Seoul is Mgr Peter Chung Soon-taick OCD (Discalced Carmelites), in office since December 8, 2021. He combines the apostolic administration of Pyongyang. The South Korean ecclesiastical structure includes 3 ecclesiastical provinces (Seoul, Daegu, Gwangju), 15 dioceses and 1 military ordinariate.

The major sanctuaries and the memory of the martyrs

The Church of Korea today lives its faith in constant memory of its martyrs. The main national sanctuaries link the territory with a veritable martyrological pilgrimage route:

• Solmoe (솔뫼), Dangjin: birthplace of Saint Andrew Kim Tae-gon. Bicentennial Shrine 2021. Major pilgrimage on August 21 (birth anniversary);
• Mirinae (미리내), Anseong: tomb of Saint Andrew Kim. Mausoleum and minor basilica;
• Saenamteo (새남터), Seoul: place of execution of Zhou Wenmo (1801), the three MEPs (1839), André Kim (1846), Berneux and three MEPs (1866). National sanctuary since 1981;
• Jeoldusan (절두산), Seoul: “Beheading Hill”, martyrs’ monument and museum (1967);
• Galmaemot (갈매못), Boryeong: beach of the martyrdom of Daveluy, Aumaître, Huin (March 30, 1866);
• Haemi (해미읍성), Chungcheong-nam: fortress-prison of the Pyŏng-in persecution;
• Cheonjinam (천진암), Gwangju (Gyeonggi): “cradle” of the catechumenate of 1779.

The Naju case and official discernment

A note should be made on the Naju case. Since June 30, 1985, Julia Kim Yun-hi (born in 1947), a lay Catholic woman from the province of Jeolla, claims that her domestic statue of the Virgin in Naju sheds tears (of blood, of perfumed oil), and reports numerous locutions, eucharistic transformations (hosts transmuted into flesh) and various apparitions. A movement of the faithful is organized around these phenomena.

On January 1, 1998, Archbishop Victorinus Youn Kong-hi of Gwangju issued an official decree declaring the Naju phenomena "without supernatural origin" and prohibiting public worship in connection with these apparitions. On January 21, 2008, his successor Archbishop Andreas Choi Chang-mou of Gwangju promulgated a new decree — an act of diocesan authority, not of a universal body — prohibiting all sacramental celebration at the presumed oratory and the hill of Naju, under pain of latae sententiae excommunication for those who preside or participate there; Naju supporters dispute the universal scope of this decree. The spring plenary assembly of the Conference of Catholic Bishops of Korea (CBCK), at the end of February 2008, decided to have this diocesan decree published in each diocese, and the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith confirmed this decision by letter of April 23, 2008^[59]. The Korean Church, which has experienced the rigor of true persecutions, exercises strict and magisterial discernment over contemporary mystical phenomena rather than diffuse credulity.

Announcement and perspective

At the end of WYD in Lisbon, on August 6, 2023, Pope Francis announces the choice of Seoul as the host city of the next World Youth Day. The August 3-8, 2027 dates were confirmed by Leo XIV on August 3, 2025, during the closing Mass of the Youth Jubilee at Tor Vergata (Rome). The theme, revealed in 2024, takes up the words of Christ to the apostles on the evening of the Last Supper:

“Have courage: I have conquered the world.” (John 16, 33)

WYD Seoul 2027 will be the first WYD in Asia since Manila 1995 — and above all the first WYD organized in a country with a Christian minority (Christians, all denominations combined, represent approximately 30% of South Korea, and Catholics 11.4%)^[60].

A Church sent

The choice of Seoul naturally continues the canonization outside Rome of 1984, the beatification of 124 martyrs in 2014, and the appointment of a Korean to the Dicastery for the Clergy in 2021. Three milestones in forty years which mark the Church of Korea no longer as a receiving mission-Church, but as a missionary sending-Church. Korea today sends missionaries to Mongolia, Cambodia, Africa and even Western Europe, where several rural French and Italian Catholic parishes are served by Korean Fidei Donum priests.

Archbishop Emeritus Cardinal Yeom Soo-jung, heir to a martyrdom lineage going back to Joseph Yeom Deok-sun, one of the first Korean converts of the 18th century, summed it up in substance in a speech delivered in Seoul during Pope Francis's apostolic journey (August 2014): the Church in Korea is the Church of the descendants of the martyrs — a Church that did not simply receive the faith but sought it, paid for it and defended it, and that today has the duty to pass it on^[61].

The Korean Church, born without a missionary, whose first sacramentally valid Eucharist was celebrated only eleven years after its secular foundation, whose blood was shed by nine European missionaries in less than a month in 1866, is today one of the most vigorous particular Churches in the Catholic world. The history of the Church in Korea is one of the great contemporary signs of the Catholic fertility of martyrdom.

• The Chinese rites controversy (1645-1742) — to understand the Roman decision of 1742 which determined the break between Korean Catholicism and Confucian rites, at the origin of the martyrdom of Paul Yun Ji-Chung in 1791.
• The Church in contemporary China (1949-2026) — to compare two Asian Churches with opposite destinies: communist persecution in the North among the Koreans, contemporary Sinicization in the South among the Chinese.
• The Church in Japan — for the parallel with the hidden Christians (Kakure Kirishitan) and the 26 martyrs of Nagasaki canonized in 1862.
• The Underground Church under Communism (1917-1991) — for the doctrine and practice of ecclesial resistance of which the ghost diocese of Pyongyang is the most extreme expression.
• The Church facing totalitarianism (1917-1989) — to situate the North Korean persecution in the Catholic doctrinal matrix of fights against totalitarian regimes.