Jeoldusan Martyrs' Shrine

Image: Wikimedia Commons

The Church in Korea was born like no other: founded by laypeople who discovered the faith through books from China, with Yi Seung-hun baptized in Beijing in 1784 returning to baptize others, decades before any priest could stay. That faith was paid for in blood. On a rocky bluff over the Han River, once a scenic ferry landing, the persecution of 1866 turned the hill into an execution ground so terrible it was renamed Jeoldusan, Beheading Mountain, where thousands of Catholics died for refusing to deny Christ. On today's feast of Saints Andrew Kim Taegon, Korea's first priest, Paul Chong Hasang and the 103 Korean Martyrs, canonized by John Paul II in Seoul in 1984, the shrine church built for the persecution's centenary rises over the river, its silhouette shaped like a traditional Korean gat hat, with the relics of martyr saints enshrined in the crypt, a museum of their letters and instruments of torture, and gardens where Seoul comes to pray in the quiet above the water.