History

The Catholic History of Seoul

Korean Catholicism began in Seoul in 1784, when lay scholars who had read Catholic books from Beijing baptized each other, without a missionary in the country. The city then became the stage of nearly a century of persecution, and its martyrs are remembered where they were tried inside the walls and killed outside them. Saint John Paul II canonized 103 of them at Yeouido in 1984, and Pope Francis beatified Blessed Paul Yun Ji-chung and 123 companions at Gwanghwamun in 2014.

Before 1784

Western Learning Reaches Seoul

Korean Catholicism began with books, not missionaries. From the early 1600s, Chinese-language works by Jesuit missionaries, such as Matteo Ricci's True Meaning of the Lord of Heaven, reached Seoul with the yearly embassies to Beijing. Scholars, mostly of the Namin faction in the school of Yi Ik, read them as Western Learning, called Seohak in Korean. Crown Prince Sohyeon met the Jesuit Adam Schall in Beijing in 1644, and Confucian critics were already answering the books by 1724.

In 1779 the scholar Gwon Cheol-sin held a study retreat for his disciples at the Jueosa temple in Gwangju county, using Catholic books to read the Confucian classics. Afterward Yi Byeok and other young scholars began to try to practice the faith. The Church dates its founding to the baptisms of 1784, since a church is a community bound by baptism.

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