A married Korean layman executed at Seoul’s Small West Gate in 1839, during the Gihae persecution of Korea’s early Catholic community.

Ignatius Kim Che-jun, a married Korean layman, was executed at the Small West Gate of Seoul on 26 September 1839 at forty-two, one of the ordinary believers who refused to renounce the faith during that year’s Gihae persecution. He is one of the 103 Martyrs of Korea canonized in 1984.

Quick Facts

• Died: 26 September 1839, Small West Gate, Seoul, Korea (age 42)
• Feast Day: 20 September (with the 103 Martyrs of Korea)
• Beatified: 1925
• Canonized: 6 May 1984

Who Was Saint Ignatius Kim Che-jun?

Kim Che-jun belonged to the generation of Korean Catholics who had received the faith without any resident bishop or ordained Korean clergy for most of their lives, a lay-led Church built almost entirely on catechists and family transmission before the first Korean priest was ordained.

Historical Setting

Executions during the 1839 Gihae persecution, ordered under the regency of Queen Dowager Sunwon, were carried out at several sites across Seoul, the Small West Gate among them, and claimed both the foreign missionary bishops leading Korea’s underground Church and a great number of ordinary lay believers.

Why the Church Remembers Saint Ignatius Kim Che-jun

The Church remembers Kim Che-jun among the many married laypeople of Gihae who held no office and led no mission, only kept the faith their families had received in secret, at a time when simply being known as Catholic was itself a capital offense in Korea.

Canonization and Feast Day

Kim Che-jun’s cause reached beatification in 1925, when Pius XI recognized the first large group of Korean martyrs, and canonization on 6 May 1984, when John Paul II, visiting Seoul, declared him and 102 companions saints of the 103 Martyrs of Korea, whose shared feast is 20 September.

What Catholics Can Learn Today

Korea’s early Church survived for generations almost entirely through the fidelity of laypeople like Kim Che-jun, with no institutional protection at all. His witness is a challenge to any Catholic community that assumes the faith cannot be kept without visible structures.

A Prayer to Saint Ignatius Kim Che-jun

Saint Ignatius Kim Che-jun, who kept the faith of the early Korean Church at the cost of your life, pray for us when our own faith must be lived quietly and at risk. Amen.

Sources

• Butler’s Lives of the Saints, revised edition, entry for the Martyrs of Korea
• Vatican.va, canonization homily of Pope John Paul II, 6 May 1984, Seoul
• New Advent Catholic Encyclopedia, background on the Gihae and Byeongo persecutions