A French priest of the Paris Foreign Missions Society martyred in Seoul in 1839, one of the early missionary victims of Korea’s severe anti-Christian persecutions.

Saint Jacques-Honore Chastan was a French priest of the Paris Foreign Missions Society, martyred on September 21, 1839, at Saenamteo in Seoul, Korea, at thirty-five years of age. He had entered Korea clandestinely to minister to the small but growing Catholic community there, at a time when the Joseon dynasty’s government treated the practice of Christianity as a serious crime, and he was captured and executed during the severe persecution of 1839, which claimed numerous Korean laypeople as well as foreign missionaries.

Quick Facts

• Born: October 7, 1803, Marcoux, France
• Died: September 21, 1839, Saenamteo, Seoul, South Korea
• Age: 35
• Canonized: 1984
• Beatified: 1925
• Venerated as: Priest, missionary, martyr

Who Was Saint Jacques-Honore Chastan?

Chastan trained as a missionary priest with the Paris Foreign Missions Society, an organization dedicated to sending secular clergy to found and sustain churches in Asia, and made his way into Korea at a time when the country was almost entirely closed to foreigners and had outlawed Christianity following earlier persecutions. Working alongside fellow missionaries, including the vicar apostolic of Korea, he ministered secretly to Korean converts until the persecution of 1839 led to his capture, interrogation, and execution at Saenamteo, a site along the Han River that became one of Korea’s principal locations for executing Christians during this era.

Historical Setting

Korea’s Joseon dynasty maintained one of the most restrictive policies toward foreign contact and Christianity of any nation in the nineteenth century, viewing the new religion as both a source of social disorder and a vehicle for unwelcome foreign influence, a suspicion that produced a series of major persecutions across the century, including those of 1801, 1839, 1846, and 1866, together claiming thousands of lives. Foreign missionaries who entered the country illegally to minister to the underground Korean Catholic community faced execution if discovered, as Chastan and several of his companions were in 1839.

Why the Church Remembers Saint Jacques-Honore Chastan

The Church remembers Chastan as part of the small company of foreign missionary priests who risked, and ultimately gave, their lives to sustain a Korean Catholic Church that had been founded and largely carried forward by the laity themselves, arriving in secret to bring the sacraments to a community that had waited years for ordained ministry.

Canonization and Feast Day

Saint Jacques-Honore Chastan was beatified in 1925 and canonized on May 6, 1984, by Pope John Paul II, together with 102 other Korean Martyrs including Saint Iulitta Kim.

What Catholics Can Learn Today

Chastan’s willingness to enter a closed and dangerous country in secret, simply to bring the sacraments to believers who had gone without them for years, is a powerful reminder of how deeply the faithful can hunger for the Eucharist and pastoral care, and of what missionaries have been willing to risk to meet that hunger.

A Prayer to Saint Jacques-Honore Chastan

Saint Jacques-Honore Chastan, missionary who crossed danger to bring the sacraments to a hidden Church, intercede for priests who serve in difficult and restricted places today. Amen.

Sources

• Roman Martyrology
• Acta Apostolicae Sedis, canonisation records of the Korean Martyrs, 1984