Sts. Andrew Kim Tae-gŏn and Paul Chŏng Ha-sang

Sts. Andrew Kim Tae-gŏn, Paul Chŏng Ha-sang, and their Companions are the martyrs of Korea, a Church remarkable in history for having been founded not by missionaries but by lay believers who discovered the faith through Christian books and spread it among themselves. In the harsh persecutions of the nineteenth century, some ten thousand Korean Christians are thought to have given their lives rather than renounce Christ.

Andrew Kim Tae-gŏn was the first native Korean to be ordained a priest; after crossing great dangers to bring priests into his homeland, he was arrested and beheaded at Seoul in 1846 at the age of twenty-five, encouraging his fellow Christians to remain faithful to the end. Paul Chŏng Ha-sang was a lay catechist and tireless organizer of the Korean Church who labored for years to obtain pastors for his people and was martyred in 1839. Together with a great company of bishops, priests, and lay men and women of every age, they were canonized by Pope St. John Paul II in 1984, and they are celebrated on 20 September.