Jiseok-ri Shrine

History & origins

Peter Son Seon-ji was born in 1820 into a Catholic family, was baptized as a child, and received catechetical formation. The Diocese of Daejeon records that, while still young, he was appointed a lay catechist-leader by Fr. Jacques-Honoré Chastan. After the Gihae Persecution of 1839, he and his family moved through several places for safety, and by the time of the Byeongin Persecution he was living in Sinrigol, Daeseong-dong, a Catholic village in the Jeonju region, where his home was used as a mission station.

Bartholomew Jeong Mun-ho was born into a yangban family and, after embracing Catholicism, left his former way of life and moved through several regions to avoid persecution. He eventually settled in Sinrigol and lived in the same Catholic community as Peter Son Seon-ji. During the Byeongin Persecution of 1866 the two were arrested with other Catholics and remained steadfast under severe interrogation and punishment. They were ultimately martyred at Supjeongi in Jeonju, and the memory of their remains and martyrdom is also connected with the martyr history of Jeonju and Cheonho.

Peter Son Seon-ji and Bartholomew Jeong Mun-ho were canonized in 1984 by St. John Paul II during his visit to Korea. Their canonization brought renewed attention to Jiseok-ri as the saints' hometown. According to the diocesan shrine account, descendants of the Son family living in Jiseok-ri, though not wealthy, donated a field to Hongsan Parish in the hope that a memorial to their ancestor would be erected there. That gift became a foundation for the present memorial site.

Jiseok-ri therefore developed differently from a shrine that preserves the actual place of execution. It is a memorial created through the historical memory of the saints' hometown, the donation of descendants, and the preservation efforts of parish and diocese. In this way the shrine shows how the faith of Korea's martyrs is carried forward not only through the memory of their deaths but also through families and local communities.