St. Andrew Kim Taegon, St. Paul Chong Hasang and Companions
Feast Day: September 20
Here is something almost unheard of in Church history.
The Catholic faith came to Korea without missionaries.
No priests arrived first.
No religious orders set up schools.
Korean scholars found Christian books, read them, and started believing.
They brought the faith to their own people themselves.
And many of them paid for it with their lives.
St. Andrew Kim Taegon, St. Paul Chong Hasang and Companions, pray for us.
A Church Started by Laypeople
In the late 1700s, Korean scholars studying in China came across Christian writings.
In 1784, a Korean named Yi Seung-hun was baptized in Beijing and returned home to share the faith.
Within a few years, there were thousands of Korean Catholics.
For more than a decade, they did not have a single priest.
Laypeople taught the faith, baptized, and led prayer.
Persecution
Korea’s rulers saw Christianity as a threat to the social order.
Christians refused to take part in certain ancestral rites and taught that all people are equal before God.
Waves of persecution followed in 1801, 1839, 1846, and 1866.
Thousands were killed.
St. Paul Chong Hasang
Paul Chong Hasang was the son of a martyr.
He was a lay catechist who traveled to Beijing again and again to beg the bishop to send priests to Korea.
He helped bring the first missionaries secretly into the country.
He even wrote a defense of the faith addressed to the government.
He was arrested and martyred in 1839, at about 44 years old.
St. Andrew Kim Taegon
Andrew Kim Taegon was born in 1821 into a Catholic family; his father was also a martyr.
As a teenager, he traveled to Macau to study for the priesthood.
In 1845, he was ordained in Shanghai, becoming the first Korean-born Catholic priest.
He returned to Korea to serve his people in secret.
He was arrested in 1846.
From prison he wrote to his fellow Catholics:
“We have received baptism and entered the Church, and we have the honor of being called Christians.”
— St. Andrew Kim Taegon
He was beheaded near Seoul on September 16, 1846.
He was only 25 years old.
The 103 Martyrs
In 1984, Pope St. John Paul II traveled to Seoul and canonized 103 Korean martyrs.
It was the first canonization held outside Rome in centuries.
The group includes 10 French missionaries and 93 Koreans: priests, catechists, mothers, fathers, young people, and even children.
The Church They Planted
Today, millions of Koreans are Catholic.
The faith that began with a few scholars reading books, and grew through the blood of martyrs, is now one of the most vibrant Catholic communities in Asia.
What These Martyrs Teach Us
The Korean martyrs teach us that ordinary laypeople can spread the faith.
They did not wait for someone else to do it.
They also teach us that being called a Christian is an honor, not a burden.
When Is the Feast?
The Catholic Church celebrates the Memorial of St. Andrew Kim Taegon, Priest, and St. Paul Chong Hasang and Companions, Martyrs, on September 20.
Prayer Inspired by the Korean Martyrs
Lord Jesus Christ,
You made the faith grow in Korea through the courage of laypeople and the blood of martyrs.
Give us the same love for the Gospel.
Help us share the faith in our own homes and communities,
and give courage to Christians who are persecuted today.
St. Andrew Kim Taegon, St. Paul Chong Hasang and Companions, pray for us. Amen.
