다락골성지

Name: 다락골성지
Address: 충청남도 청양군 화성면 다락골길 78 - 6, KR
Telephone: +82-41-943-8123

Shrine

About this place

Darakgol Shrine is a Catholic pilgrimage site in Cheongyang presented by the Diocese of Daejeon. It brings together the memory of the birthplace of Father Thomas Choe Yang-eop, Korea’s second Catholic priest, and his father Saint Francis Choe Gyeong-hwan, along with the row graves of martyrs and confessors whose names have not been preserved. Its defining character is that the roots of a priestly vocation and the witness of faith under persecution can be encountered side by side in one place.

Within the shrine, pilgrims can walk between the site associated with Father Choe Yang-eop’s birthplace and the row graves while reflecting on the lives of earlier Catholics. The Diocese of Daejeon also describes a walking pilgrimage route in the Hwaseong-myeon area that passes the birthplace site and continues to the graves. Rather than being defined chiefly by monumental structures, Darakgol conveys its history through the former Catholic village landscape, the graves, and the mountain paths themselves, making it a place to contemplate both the history of persecution and the history of priestly vocation in the Korean Catholic Church.

Official source

History & origins

The Catholic community at Darakgol can be traced back to the period after the Sinhae Persecution of 1791. According to the Diocese of Daejeon, Choe In-ju, the grandfather of Father Choe Yang-eop, fled to this mountain village with his mother, Lady Yi of Gyeongseong, and the settlement began to take shape as a Catholic village. In this community were born Thomas Choe Yang-eop, who would become Korea’s second Catholic priest, and his father Francis Choe Gyeong-hwan. Choe Gyeong-hwan was canonized by Pope John Paul II in 1984, and Father Choe’s mother, Maria Yi Seong-rye, was beatified by Pope Francis in 2014.

During the Gihae Persecution of 1839, the French missionaries Father Pierre Maubant and Father Jacques Chastan stayed in Darakgol. After Bishop Imbert had already been arrested, he wrote to the two missionaries asking them to surrender in order to reduce harm to the Catholic faithful. Obeying that request, they left for surrender after celebrating what the diocesan account describes as their last Mass here. The episode connects Darakgol not only with one Catholic family but also with the wider life of the persecuted Church in Joseon and the ministry of its missionaries.

The row graves at the shrine contain Catholics who died for their faith in Hongju and Gongju during the Byeongin Persecution of 1866. The Diocese of Daejeon states that 37 graves remain in three sections, from an original total of 40. Because those buried there include martyrs and confessors whose individual names have not been preserved, the graves call attention to the collective witness of a community rather than only to famous individuals.

Darakgol thus brings together in one landscape a Catholic village formed under persecution, the family history of a priest and a saint, the missionaries’ last Mass, and the burial place of victims of the Byeongin Persecution. The shrine today preserves these different layers of memory and links the history of Catholic persecution in the Naepo and Chungcheong regions to identifiable places and human lives.