Korea’s first native-born Catholic priest, ordained in 1845 and beheaded for his faith just thirteen months later, honored as a founding figure of the Korean Church.

Saint Andrew Kim Taegon was born in 1821 into a Catholic family in Joseon-dynasty Korea, at a time when Christianity was outlawed and its adherents faced severe persecution, including within his own family, whose members had already suffered for the faith. Chosen as a young man for priestly formation, he undertook a long and dangerous journey out of Korea, eventually studying for the priesthood in Macau before being ordained in Shanghai in 1845, becoming the first Korean-born Catholic priest in history. He returned secretly to Korea to minister to the underground Catholic community and to help foreign missionaries enter the country undetected. He was arrested by Korean authorities in 1846, interrogated, and beheaded at Saenamteo, near Seoul, only thirteen months after his ordination, at the age of twenty-five. His brief priesthood became a lasting symbol of the Korean Church’s courage and its roots in lay-led evangelization.

Quick Facts

• Born: August 21, 1821, Chungcheong Province, Korea
• Died: September 16, 1846, Saenamteo, near Seoul, Korea
• Ordained: 1845, Shanghai, China, the first native Korean Catholic priest
• Feast Day: September 20 (with Saint Paul Chong Hasang and companions)
• Canonized: May 6, 1984, Seoul, by Pope Saint John Paul II
• Patron of: Korean clergy and the Catholic Church in Korea

Who Was Saint Andrew Kim Taegon?

Saint Andrew Kim Taegon was born in 1821 into a Catholic family in Joseon-dynasty Korea, at a time when Christianity was outlawed and its adherents faced severe persecution, including within his own family, whose members had already suffered for the faith. Chosen as a young man for priestly formation, he undertook a long and dangerous journey out of Korea, eventually studying for the priesthood in Macau before being ordained in Shanghai in 1845, becoming the first Korean-born Catholic priest in history. He returned secretly to Korea to minister to the underground Catholic community and to help foreign missionaries enter the country undetected. He was arrested by Korean authorities in 1846, interrogated, and beheaded at Saenamteo, near Seoul, only thirteen months after his ordination, at the age of twenty-five. His brief priesthood became a lasting symbol of the Korean Church’s courage and its roots in lay-led evangelization.

Historical Setting

Catholicism reached Korea in the late eighteenth century in an unusual way, carried in first not by foreign missionaries but by Korean scholars who encountered Christian texts brought from China and converted themselves before any priest had ever set foot in the country, making the Korean Church one of the few in history essentially founded by its own laity. The Joseon dynasty government treated Catholicism as a foreign and subversive threat to Confucian social order, and periodic waves of persecution through the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries killed thousands of Korean Catholics, often entire families at once, well before Andrew Kim’s own martyrdom. Andrew Kim’s parents were themselves Catholic converts, and his father, Ignatius Kim Jegun, was martyred in an earlier wave of persecution in 1839, meaning Andrew grew up fully aware of the cost his faith could demand.

Why the Church Venerates Saint Andrew Kim Taegon

The Church honors Andrew Kim Taegon as the first fruit of a native Korean priesthood, a role of particular significance for a Church that had been founded and sustained for decades almost entirely by laypeople before any ordained clergy existed there at all. His willingness to risk, and ultimately give, his life to guide foreign missionaries safely into a hostile country and to serve a persecuted flock reflects the depth of pastoral commitment the young Korean Church required of its earliest leaders. He is venerated together with Paul Chong Hasang, a lay catechist and fellow martyr, and 101 other Korean martyrs as a group, whose collective witness the Church presents as the seed from which the modern, thriving Korean Catholic Church grew.

Canonization and Feast Day

Pope Saint John Paul II canonized Andrew Kim Taegon together with 102 other Korean martyrs, including Paul Chong Hasang, in Seoul on May 6, 1984, the first canonization ceremony ever held outside Rome. In his homily, the Pope described their deaths as a witness to the crucified and risen Christ and as the seed of the Korean Church’s growth. Their shared feast day is celebrated on September 20.

What Catholics Can Learn Today

Andrew Kim Taegon’s short life is a powerful witness to the cost some Christians have paid, and continue to pay in various parts of the world, simply to receive ordination and serve their own people. His journey out of Korea and back again, undertaken in secrecy and at enormous personal risk, is a reminder that access to the sacraments and to pastoral care, which many Catholics today take for granted, has depended in many places and times on extraordinary courage. For readers today, his example invites gratitude for religious freedom where it exists and solidarity with Christians in places where practicing the faith still carries real danger.

A Prayer to Saint Andrew Kim Taegon

Saint Andrew Kim Taegon, first priest of Korea, who risked every danger to bring the sacraments to a hidden and suffering Church, intercede for all who serve the faith in places of persecution today. Give courage to missionaries and to the communities that shelter them, and strengthen the Church in Korea that grew from the blood of your witness. Teach us that no distance and no danger should keep us from bringing Christ to those who long for him. Amen.

Sources

• Vatican.va (canonization homily of Pope John Paul II, 1984)
• the Catholic Encyclopedia (New Advent)
• Encyclopaedia Britannica
• Catholic Bishops’ Conference of Korea historical records