A Korean father and layman executed in 1866 during Korea’s Byeong-in persecution, the same crisis that killed his own son.

Petrus Cho Hwa-sŏ was a married Korean Catholic layman, father of Saint Iosephus Cho Yun-ho, executed at Supjeong-i, Jeongju, in the Chungcheong region of Korea on December 13, 1866, at about fifty years old, during the severe Byeong-in persecution of Catholics in Korea.

Quick Facts

• Died: December 13, 1866, Supjeong-i, Jeongju, Chungcheong-do, South Korea (about age 50)
• Venerated as: Lay martyr
• Son: Saint Iosephus Cho Yun-ho
• Beatified: 1968
• Canonized: 1984

Who Was Saint Petrus Cho Hwa-sŏ?

Petrus Cho Hwa-sŏ was a married Korean Catholic layman and father whose son, Iosephus Cho Yun-ho, is likewise venerated as a martyr, indicating that father and son were both swept up in the same wave of persecution and both refused to abandon their Catholic faith even as it cost them their lives together.

Historical Setting

The Byeong-in persecution of 1866, the largest and bloodiest of Korea’s nineteenth-century anti-Catholic crackdowns, was launched by the regent Heungseon Daewongun amid fears of foreign, especially French, influence entering Korea through the Catholic Church; thousands of Korean Catholics were executed across the country over the following years, including numerous French missionary bishops and priests as well as vast numbers of Korean laypeople.

Why the Church Remembers Saint Petrus Cho Hwa-sŏ

Petrus Cho Hwa-sŏ is remembered, alongside his son, as part of a family that held firmly to the Catholic faith even as the Byeong-in persecution devastated the Korean Church, their shared martyrdom reflecting how deeply Catholicism had taken root within particular Korean households by the mid-nineteenth century.

Canonization and Feast Day

Petrus Cho Hwa-sŏ was beatified in 1968 and canonized by Pope John Paul II in Seoul on May 6, 1984, together with the broader group of 103 Korean Martyrs. Their shared feast is kept on September 20.

What Catholics Can Learn Today

A father and son martyred together in the same persecution is a striking image of how faith, once deeply rooted in a family, can hold firm across a generation even under the most extreme pressure — a witness that speaks directly to parents hoping to hand on a durable faith to their own children.

A Prayer to Saint Petrus Cho Hwa-sŏ

Saint Petrus Cho Hwa-sŏ, father who stood firm in faith alongside your own son, watch over Catholic families today striving to pass on the faith across generations, that what parents plant, their children may carry forward even through hardship. Amen.

Sources

• Vatican.va, canonization homily of Pope John Paul II, May 6, 1984
• Roman Martyrology, September 20, Korean Martyrs
• New Advent, Catholic Encyclopedia, “Korea”