Hansil Shrine

History & origins

The Diocese of Andong dates the formation of the Hansil Catholic village to around the time of the Sinyu Persecution of 1801. Catholics fleeing persecution moved into the deep mountain area between Baekhwasan and Noejeongsan and formed a community that survived for many years, continuing until around the Byeongin Persecution of 1866. Hansil also served as an intermediate station: it connected arriving Catholics with other Catholic villages in the Gyeongsang region and offered rest and information to those preparing to move elsewhere.

In the mid-nineteenth century, Father Calais of the Paris Foreign Missions Society traveled through the region, using Hansil as one of the centers from which he administered the sacraments and carried out missionary work among nearby Catholic villages such as Geonhak, Yeoumok, and Sasil, as well as among Catholics around Yeonpung. Diocesan materials preserve the names of many martyrs associated with Hansil and state that a number of them died in the Sangju prison. Although the lives of every individual cannot be verified in equal detail from the available sources, Hansil’s importance as a mountain Catholic community around the time of the Byeongin Persecution is clear.

The memory of Hansil later led to a renewed shrine project. As part of the Diocese of Andong’s program honoring martyrs for the fortieth anniversary of the diocese, the tomb of the martyr Paul Seo Yu-hyeong was excavated in Nahan-ri, Hamchang-eup, Sangju, on September 12, 2009. His remains and soil from the grave were placed in an earthenware jar and reinterred in a newly prepared tomb at Hansil, and a symbolic tomb was also made for his sister-in-law, the martyr Lucia Park.

Through these developments, Hansil became a shrine where the traces of a Catholic village hidden during persecution are joined to the modern Church’s commemoration of the martyrs. The movement and mutual support of early Catholics, the pastoral activity of missionaries, memories of martyrdom, and the diocese’s modern work of commemoration all meet in this one place, forming the historical and spiritual significance of Hansil Shrine.