St. Andrew Kim Tae-gon is the first native-born Korean priest, and is patron saint of Korea. He was martyred with nearly 10,000 other Koreans, mostly lay people, before Christianity was tolerated in Korea in 1884. Today, we venerate nearly 100 of these Koreans who have been declared saints, including Andrew and a layman, Paul Chong Hasang.

The first Christians in Korea were baptized by invading Japanese soldiers in the late 1500s. The faith slowly grew, and then in 1777, several Christian texts made their way to Korea and converted some scholars. When a missionary priest visited the country more than a decade later, he found 4,000 Christians living without the sacraments—they had never seen a priest before.

The Korean monarchy feared Christianity as a colonizing force and repressed it with several violent persecutions between 1791 and 1866. Andrew’s parents were converts to the faith, and his father, grandfather, and several uncles were executed for it. Andrew’s mother was left destitute and had to rely on begging for survival.

Andrew was baptized at the age of 15, and soon after left for Macao, China—1,200 miles away—to enter a seminary there. After further missionary work, he was ordained a priest and returned to Korea to minister and evangelize. Two years later, at the age of 25, he was captured as he made his way along the Korean shoreline to find safe and secret passages for other missionaries. He was tortured and beheaded on September 26, 1846.

Before he was killed, Andrew wrote his fellow Christians: “We have received baptism, entrance into the Church, and the honor of being called Christians. Yet what good will this do us if we are Christians in name only and not in fact?”

Paul Chong Hasang was also the son of converts to Christianity—he was born in 1795 and though several members of his family were also martyred, he also sought the faith. He took a job serving a government interpreter, which allowed him to travel to Beijing. There, he asked the bishop to establish a diocese in Korea and send priests, which happened in 1825.

As a lay leader and married man, Paul was a unifying figure for Christians and advocated for them to the Korean government. When another persecution broke out, he was arrested and tried. He gave a written statement to the judge, who read it and said, “You are right in what you have written; but the king forbids this religion, it is your duty to renounce it.” Paul replied, “I have told you that I am a Christian, and will be one until my death.” He was tortured, then placed on a cross and died. His mother, Cecelia Yu Sosa, was also martyred that same year from injuries following repeated whippings.

When he visited Korea in 1984, Pope St. John Paul II canonized Andrew and Paul, along with 98 other Koreans and three French missionary priests. Of the group, 47 were lay women and 45 were lay men—read some of their stories here. (Images of St. Andrew and St. Paul are used here with permission from Catholic.org.)

St. Andrew Kim Taegon, Paul Chong Hasang, and the martyrs who died for the faith in Korea, pray for us!