About this place
Yosaul Shrine Church is the church of Yosaul Shrine in the Hongseong District of the Catholic Diocese of Daejeon, and the Guide to the Catholic Church in Korea also lists the shrine as a parish. It preserves the faith heritage of Yosaul, the home village of Ludovicus Yi Jon-chang, a central figure in the early spread of Catholicism in Chungcheong, and serves as a pilgrimage site remembering how the faith took root throughout the Naepo region. A parish community under the patronage of the Sacred Heart of Jesus also continues within the shrine.
The shrine retains a memorial church honoring Yi Jon-chang and an old mission-station building, allowing visitors to encounter traces of the local Catholic community that endured through the era of persecution. Through the saints and blesseds associated with Yosaul, the site also invites reflection on how early Korean Catholics received the faith and handed it on to their neighbors.
History & origins
The Catholic history of Yosaul reaches back to the period when the Catholic Church in Joseon was just taking shape. According to the Diocese of Daejeon, Ludovicus Yi Jon-chang, a native of this village, was baptized in 1784 and returned home to spread the Gospel and help form Catholic communities throughout Naepo in northwestern Chungcheong. For this reason he is remembered as the “Apostle of Naepo,” and Yosaul is regarded as an important center of the early spread of Catholicism in Chungcheong.
Yosaul later produced several witnesses to the faith during the age of persecution. Saints Peter Hong Byeong-ju and Paul Hong Yeong-ju were from the village, while Andrew Kim Gwang-ok and his son Francis Kim Hui-seong were beatified by Pope Francis in 2014. The diocesan account states that, apart from a gap of about ten years after the Byeongin Persecution, a Catholic community in the area continued from the earliest period of the Korean Church.
Places commemorating Yi Jon-chang and the old mission station remain as signs linking that history to the present. The Guide to the Catholic Church in Korea records Yosaul Shrine as a parish established on January 23, 2008, under the patronage of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. This shows how the memory of the persecuted-era Catholic village came to continue in modern shrine ministry and parish life.
Korean Catholic Places Encyclopedia
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Building information
- Passenger elevators: 0
- 2 above-ground floors · 0 below-ground floors
- Approved for use in 2010
- Total floor area: 498㎡
Building-register record · · Source
Accessibility information
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Sources and updates
- Information Status
- Official
- Source
- Diocese source
- Data freshness
- Fresh
- Last updated
- Source
- Francisco Diary
Diocese
Daejeon Diocese (Diocese of Daejeon)
Official website: http://www.djcatholic.or.kr
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