Sanmakgol Shrine / Small Jae Shrine

History & origins

The Catholic village of Sanmakgol took shape after the Gihae Persecution of 1839, when believers fled into the mountains to escape persecution. Although the community survived away from public view, it did not remain an isolated refuge. It stayed connected with neighboring Catholic villages and became one of the missionary centers of the lower Naepo region. The Diocese of Daejeon states that as many as ten martyrs are recorded as having come from Sanmakgol. Sanmakgol thus had a dual character: it was a refuge from persecution and at the same time a Catholic village where believers strengthened one another’s faith and maintained contact with missionaries.

The village also served as a base for the pastoral activity of the French missionary Fr. Stanislas Féron. He worked in association with Bishops Siméon-François Berneux and Marie-Nicolas-Antoine Daveluy. St. Luke Hwang Seok-du lived in Sanmakgol with his family for six years, serving missionaries as an altar assistant, teaching Chinese characters, and acting as a leader of the believers. Records also state that Bishop Daveluy visited Sanmakgol and administered baptism, while Fr. Thomas Choe Yang-eop, who stayed at nearby Bulmugol, traveled to the village and maintained contact with Fr. Féron. These details show that a small mountain Catholic village was connected with a wider missionary network in the Church of Joseon.

At the Jagunjae mountain pass there were rows of graves belonging to earlier believers who had lived in hiding in the surrounding area. During later road construction, religious objects such as rosaries and crucifixes were discovered. The remains and objects were reburied nearby, but the exact burial place was subsequently lost. To preserve their memory, the diocese installed a cross, an outdoor altar, and the fourteen Stations of the Cross on the pass. The very fact that neither all the names nor the exact grave locations survived reflects the ruptures suffered by Catholic communities under persecution.

Sanmakgol and Jagunjae therefore preserve complementary aspects of the same history: one retains traces of a living Catholic village and missionary activity, while the other preserves the memory of the death and burial of believers whose names were not handed down. Pilgrimage between the two places recalls how faith during persecution endured through both the life and the death of the community and brings two complementary memories of lower Naepo Catholic history together on a single route.