Martyr's Devotion Pilgrimage Site

History & origins

Baengnyeongdo’s connection with the Catholic Church in Korea reaches back to the history of missionary sea routes during the nineteenth-century persecutions. When overland entry into Joseon became dangerous, Saint Andrew Kim Tae-gon sought in 1846 to open a maritime route by which missionaries coming from China could enter Korea through the Yellow Sea. A number of missionaries of the Paris Foreign Missions Society later used routes connected with the waters off Baengnyeongdo. For this reason, the island came to preserve a memory that extends beyond the history of a local parish: it recalls one of the sea routes by which the Korean Church remained connected with foreign missionaries.

A permanent parish community on the island was established much later. Catholic news and church records state that Baengnyeongdo Parish was founded in 1959 and subsequently became the center of Catholic life for the island and its mission stations. When the parish reached its sixtieth anniversary in 2019, the older history of the missionary sea route received renewed attention.

In March 2019, Bishop John Baptist Jung Shin-chul of Incheon approved and proclaimed Baengnyeongdo Church as a “Pilgrimage Site for Devotion to the Martyrs,” exercising the authority of a diocesan ordinary under canon law. The diocese emphasized the island’s history as an important entry route for missionaries during persecution and also connected the designation with the centenary of Pope Benedict XV’s missionary apostolic letter and the observance of the Extraordinary Missionary Month. Baengnyeongdo Church thus became both a parish and a diocesan pilgrimage site, where Catholics can reflect on the faith of the martyrs and the dangerous journeys undertaken by missionaries entering Korea.