A Korean laywoman and daughter of Saint Catharina Yi, put to death in Seoul Prison in September 1839 during the Gihae persecution of Korean Catholics.

Saint Magdalena Cho was a Korean Catholic laywoman, daughter of Saint Catharina Yi, who died in Seoul Prison in September 1839 at about thirty-one years old. Her death came during the Gihae persecution, a violent government campaign against Korea’s underground Catholic community. She is venerated as one of the 103 Martyrs of Korea, a group beatified in 1925 and canonized together in 1984.

Quick Facts

• Country/Region: South Korea
• Died: September 1839, Seoul Prison (age approx. 31)
• Venerated as: Lay martyr; daughter of Saint Catharina Yi
• Beatified: 1925; Canonized: 1984
• Feast day: 20 September (with the 103 Martyrs of Korea)

Who Was Saint Magdalena Cho?

Magdalena Cho was a laywoman of the small but resilient Catholic community of nineteenth-century Korea, identified in the record chiefly through her family bond as the daughter of Saint Catharina Yi. She died in Seoul Prison in September 1839, one of many believers swept up in that year’s crackdown on Christianity, at roughly thirty-one years of age.

Historical Setting

The Gihae persecution of 1839 was one of several waves of state violence against Korea’s Catholics, a community that had taken root without any resident missionary clergy and grown almost entirely through the efforts of lay believers. Imprisonment, torture, and execution were used to force recantation, and Seoul’s prisons held many of the faithful, including entire families, in the months before their deaths.

Why the Church Remembers Saint Magdalena Cho

The Church honors Magdalena Cho as part of a family and a community that chose fidelity over survival. That she and her mother, Saint Catharina Yi, both died for the faith reflects how Catholicism in Korea was often transmitted and defended within households, mother to daughter, under conditions of extreme danger.

Canonization and Feast Day

In 1984, Pope John Paul II travelled to Seoul to canonize her together with 102 other Korean martyrs, fifty-nine years after Rome had beatified the same group in 1925. Her feast, like theirs, falls on 20 September alongside Saint Andrew Kim Taegon and companions.

What Catholics Can Learn Today

Magdalena Cho’s witness alongside her own mother shows how faith can be handed down as a family inheritance even under persecution. Her example encourages Catholics today to see the domestic church, the family itself, as a real place where courage and belief are formed.

A Prayer to Saint Magdalena Cho

Saint Magdalena Cho, who followed your mother’s faith even to a prison cell in Seoul, help families today to pass on belief with the same quiet courage. Strengthen the bonds between parents and children in the practice of the faith. Amen.

Sources

• Roman Martyrology
• Vatican.va — canonization of the 103 Martyrs of Korea (1984)
• New Advent Catholic Encyclopedia — Martyrs of Korea