1784 · Seoul, Joseon Dynasty (modern Seoul, South Korea)

Catholic Missions to Korea Begin

In 1784, the Korean scholar Yi Seung-hun was baptized in Beijing and returned home to establish a Catholic community in Korea — the only country in the world where the Catholic faith was introduced not by foreign missionaries but by its own people seeking truth on their own initiative.

The story of Korean Catholicism is unlike any other in Church history. There were no missionaries. Korean scholars of the Silhak (practical learning) movement encountered Catholic texts brought from China — works by Matteo Ricci and other Jesuits — and began studying them as philosophy. Some became convinced that the teachings were true. In 1783, Yi Seung-hun traveled to Beijing with a diplomatic mission and sought out the Catholic church there. He was baptized by a French Lazarist priest, taking the name Peter, and returned to Korea with religious books and supplies. He began baptizing others. Within a few years, a functioning Catholic community existed in Korea with no ordained priest, no bishop, and no foreign guidance. The Korean Catholics organized themselves, selected leaders, and even attempted to celebrate the sacraments on their own before learning that lay people could not do this. They then sent repeated requests to Beijing for a priest. The Korean government viewed Catholicism as a foreign subversion of Confucian social order. Persecution began in 1791 and continued in waves through 1866. Thousands of Korean Catholics were martyred — tortured and executed for refusing to renounce their faith. The first foreign priest, the Chinese Father Zhou Wenmo, arrived secretly in 1795. The Paris Foreign Missions Society sent priests beginning in the 1830s. Korea's Catholic community survived decades of brutal persecution and emerged as one of the most vibrant Catholic churches in Asia.

Why it matters

Produced the only national Catholic community in history founded entirely by local initiative rather than foreign missionaries, and generated thousands of martyrs whose witness built one of the most dynamic Catholic churches in Asia.