Jukrimgul Faith Pilgrimage Site

History & origins

Jukrimgul is known as a refuge where Father Thomas Choe Yang-eop stayed while evading government pursuit during the Gyeongsin Persecution of 1860. Church sources state that he remained there for roughly three to four months, celebrating Mass with the faithful and continuing his pastoral ministry. The cave was therefore more than a hiding place: it became a temporary space of faith where sacramental and communal life could continue under persecution.

On September 3, 1860, Father Choe wrote a letter from Jukrimgul. It is now known as his final surviving letter and contains a report of his pastoral activity even while he was living in danger and avoiding pursuit. This record makes Jukrimgul an important historic site connecting the final phase of Father Choe’s ministry with the concrete circumstances of the persecuted Korean Church.

The cave, long hidden in the mountains, was identified again in 1986 when Father Kim Young-gon Simon, then pastor of Eonyang Parish, explored the area with parishioners. After its rediscovery, the Church began to commemorate the site as a place of pilgrimage and prayer. Records also show that a Mass marking the twelfth anniversary of the discovery was celebrated in 1998.

The history of Jukrimgul thus unfolds in three stages: refuge and Mass during persecution, Father Choe’s final letter, and rediscovery more than a century later. Its preservation today as a Catholic historic site rests less on the cave’s natural features than on its ability to keep tangible memory of a community that continued pastoral ministry and liturgical life in the face of danger. The commemorative Masses held after the rediscovery show that Jukrimgul did not remain merely a site where traces of the past had been identified; it became a place where memory was renewed through actual pilgrimage and liturgy. One of the defining features of its history is that records of the persecuted Church and the pilgrimage life of the modern Church meet in the same physical space.