Blessed Yoon Bong-Mun Shrine

History & origins

Joseph Yun Bong-mun was born in 1852 near Gyeongju in Gyeongsang Province, the second son of Stanislaus Yun Sa-u and Magdalena. After the family’s property was confiscated during the Byeongin Persecution of 1866, they moved through Yangsan and eventually settled at Jinmokjeong on Geoje Island. His father secretly spread the Gospel, and Joseph grew up in the faith and assisted the local Catholic community. When Father Robert visited Geoje in the winter of 1887, Joseph was appointed a local Catholic leader and guided the priest, helping the community in a year when several adults received baptism.

The following spring, police from Tongyeong began arresting Catholics, and Joseph was seized with three other believers. He alone was taken to Tongyeong, questioned, and tortured, but refused to renounce the faith. He was then transferred to Jinju. Even there he continued to profess his faith, reciting the Ten Commandments, and was executed by hanging on the night of April 1, 1888. He was thirty-six years old.

The martyr’s remains were moved more than once. His descendants eventually buried him in the family burial ground at Jokbakgol in Okpo, Geoje, but the steep terrain, difficult access, and problems in preserving the grave led priests and Catholics of the Geoje area to seek a more suitable place of pilgrimage. After reviewing their petition, the Diocese of Masan transferred his remains to the present site at Jisepo on April 20, 2013. The move accompanied the development of the site with the Stations of the Cross, a Rosary path, and a memorial monument, giving concrete form to the shrine.

On August 16, 2014, Joseph Yun Bong-mun was beatified in Seoul’s Gwanghwamun Square by Pope Francis together with Paul Yun Ji-chung and 123 companion martyrs. The Jisepo tomb thus became not only a place preserving the memory of martyrdom on Geoje but also a shrine to a Blessed publicly venerated by the Catholic Church in Korea. The present shrine is the result of a single historical movement linking the martyr’s life, the local Church’s efforts to preserve and translate his remains, and public pilgrimage after beatification.