Daejeong Shrine

History & origins

Maria Jeong Nan-ju was sentenced to exile in Jeju in 1801 as a member of the family implicated in the Hwang Sa-yeong Silk Letter affair during the Sinyu Persecution. After her husband, Alexius Hwang Sa-yeong, was executed, she was sent toward Jeju with her young son. She was separated from him at Chuja Island and reached Daejeong-hyeon, where she had to live in the status of a government slave. Diocesan sources state that she remained there as a witness to the faith for thirty-eight years and died in 1838 at the age of sixty-six.

Over time, Jeong Nan-ju's grave became a central place where the Church in Jeju remembered her faith. The official diocesan chronology records that in 1994 a ceremony was held to consecrate the sacred area around her grave in connection with a diocesan commemoration of martyrs. This helped establish the grave more clearly as an official place of Catholic memory and pilgrimage in Jeju.

In 2015 the Diocese of Jeju proclaimed and opened the “Jeong Nan-ju Trail,” beginning at Daejeong Shrine. The route links the memory of her exile with other historical sites in the Daejeong area as a path for walking and prayer. Daejeong Shrine has thus developed from the grave of a woman remembered for faith and endurance in exile into a diocesan pilgrimage site where the history of persecution and exile is contemplated together with the broader history of the region.