A married Korean catechist who taught the faith to fellow believers in secret and was executed in Seoul in 1840, one of the early lay martyrs of the Korean Church.

Saint Augustinus Pak Chong-wŏn (1793-1840) was a Korean Catholic layman, married catechist, and martyr, put to death during one of the severe waves of persecution that struck Korea’s Catholic community in the early nineteenth century. Born in Seoul, he lived at a time when Christianity had entered Korea largely through the independent study and conversion of Korean scholars rather than foreign missionaries, and remained officially outlawed by the Joseon dynasty as a threat to Confucian social order. As a catechist, Pak taught and encouraged fellow Catholics who had no ordained priests to guide them for long stretches of the Church’s early history in Korea, sustaining the faith through instruction and example within a persecuted underground community. Arrested for his open adherence to Catholicism, he was executed at Dangkogae in Seoul on January 31, 1840, at forty-six years old. He is honored among the 103 Martyrs of Korea, canonized together by Pope John Paul II in a historic ceremony held in Seoul in 1984.

Quick Facts

• Born: 1793, in Seoul, Korea
• Died: January 31, 1840, at Dangkogae, Seoul, Korea, at age forty-six
• Feast Day: September 20, with the Martyrs of Korea
• Canonized: May 6, 1984, in Seoul, Korea, by Pope John Paul II
• Patron of: Catechists, honored among the Korean Martyrs

Who Was Saint Augustinus Pak Chong-wŏn?

Augustinus Pak Chong-wŏn was born in Seoul in 1793, into a Korea where Catholicism had arrived and taken root in an unusual way: not primarily through resident foreign missionaries, but through Korean scholars who first encountered Christian texts brought back from China and began instructing themselves and one another in the faith before any priest had ever set foot in the country. By the time Pak grew to adulthood, this lay-led Catholic community had survived several waves of state persecution, since the Joseon dynasty regarded Christianity’s rejection of ancestor rites and its egalitarian teaching as a direct challenge to Confucian social order. Pak married and lived as a layman within this community, taking on the role of catechist, one of the men and women who, in the frequent absence of any ordained priest, quietly taught new believers the essentials of the faith, prepared them for baptism, and helped sustain Catholic practice underground. This work carried constant risk of denunciation and arrest. Pak was eventually seized for his open involvement in the Catholic community during a renewed round of persecution in 1839 and 1840, and was executed at the well-known execution ground of Dangkogae in Seoul on January 31, 1840.

Historical Setting

Pak’s life and death took place within the broader history of Korean Catholicism’s remarkable and largely self-generated origins, followed by repeated and often brutal persecutions across the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries as the Joseon government sought to eliminate what it viewed as a subversive foreign creed. The absence of resident priests for much of this period placed unusual weight on the shoulders of lay catechists like Pak, who effectively kept the Korean Church alive through instruction, secret gatherings, and personal example until missionary clergy were able to enter the country in greater numbers.

Why the Church Venerates Saint Augustinus Pak Chong-wŏn

The Church venerates Pak Chong-wŏn as a representative of the distinctively lay character of Korea’s early Catholic Church, a community that took root and endured largely through the initiative of its own laypeople rather than foreign clergy. His role as catechist highlights a form of ministry the Church has always relied upon but does not always celebrate by name, and his martyrdom as a married layman shows that heroic sanctity was fully accessible to ordinary believers living within families and secular occupations, not only to priests or religious.

Canonization and Feast Day

Augustinus Pak Chong-wŏn was beatified on July 5, 1925, by Pope Pius XI, and canonized on May 6, 1984, by Pope John Paul II in Seoul, South Korea, together with 102 other Korean martyrs, in the first canonization ceremony ever held outside Rome. The group is commemorated together each year on September 20 as the Martyrs of Korea, honoring saints Andrew Kim Taegon, Paul Chong Hasang, and their companions.

What Catholics Can Learn Today

Pak Chong-wŏn’s life as a married catechist who sustained the faith of others through patient teaching, long before he was ever called to give his life for it, is a reminder that the transmission of faith often depends on quiet, unglamorous instruction carried out by ordinary believers. His example encourages Catholics today, particularly parents, godparents, and lay catechists, to see their own teaching of the faith as a genuine and valuable form of ministry, one that can, as it did for Pak, become the seedbed of extraordinary holiness.

A Prayer to Saint Augustinus Pak Chong-wŏn

Saint Augustinus Pak Chong-wŏn, faithful catechist and martyr of Korea, you taught others the faith in secret and sealed your teaching with your life. Pray for catechists, teachers, and parents who hand on the faith today, that they may do so with your patience and your courage. Intercede for the Church in Korea, born from the witness of lay believers like you, and for all who keep the faith alive in places without priests. Help us treasure the gift of instruction in belief as much as you did, and to teach others as faithfully as you taught your own community. Amen.

Sources

• Vatican.va, Holy See canonization records
• the Roman Martyrology
• Catholic Bishops’ Conference of Korea, historical records of the Korean Martyrs
• Encyclopaedia Britannica