Hwangmuisil Shrine

History & origins

According to the Diocese of Daejeon, Catholics were living at Hwangmusil from around 1785, near the beginning of evangelization in the Naepo region. An early believer, Simeon Yu Gun-myeong, is remembered for freeing his servants after becoming Catholic. The community at one point grew into a Catholic village of about one hundred believers and continued its life of faith despite persecution.

Hwangmusil became a place of rest and pastoral refuge for French missionaries working under persecution. An early form of the Holy Childhood work was also carried out there, with orphaned children being received into Catholic families. Fathers Maistre and Landre, who worked at Hwangmusil, died of illness in 1857 and 1863 respectively and were buried there.

Francis Yi Bo-hyeon, recorded as the first martyr from Hwangmusil, was martyred at Haemi on January 9, 1800. Other members of the community also died as martyrs at Hongju and Haemi, and Francis Yi Bo-hyeon was beatified by Pope Francis in 2014. The ordinary faith life of the Catholic village and its witness under persecution thus belong to the same historical story.

The community collapsed during the Byeongin Persecution of 1866 and did not recover its former size. The remains of Fathers Maistre and Landre, which had been buried at Hwangmusil, were transferred to Hapdeok Catholic Church in 1970 and again in 2003 to the clergy cemetery of the Diocese of Daejeon on the campus of Daejeon Catholic University. Although the village community disappeared, its site and records were preserved, leaving Hwangmusil as a shrine that brings together the memory of lay Catholic village life, missionary ministry, and martyrdom in Naepo.