Blessed Martyr Park Dae-sik Victorino's Tomb

History & origins

Victorinus Park Dae-sik was born in 1812 in Yedong, Gimhae, Gyeongsang Province, in what is now Sirye-ri, Jinrye-myeon, Gimhae. After becoming Catholic, he continued to practice his faith until he was arrested with his nephew Park Su-yeon during the persecution of 1868 and imprisoned at the Gimhae government office. Refusing to renounce the faith with other Catholics in prison, he was transferred to Daegu, where he endured interrogation and punishment without apostatizing. On October 12 of that year, he was beheaded and martyred at Gwandeokjeong in Daegu.

When his family learned of his martyrdom, they recovered his body in Daegu and brought it back to his home region. Opposition prevented them from burying him in the ancestral family cemetery, so his son and relatives laid him in a flat grave on land belonging to the Yu clan at Chaekgol in present-day Cheongcheon-ri, Jinrye-myeon, Gimhae. The Diocese of Masan records that the grave has never been relocated since then. In the spring of 1956, his descendants enlarged the burial mound and moved his wife's grave to establish a more complete family grave site.

On April 15, 1966, a tombstone was erected through the efforts of Fr. Thomas Yu Chang-ho, then pastor of Jinyeong Parish. Because the martyr's baptismal name was not yet securely known, the temporary name “Noryeonjo (Laurentius)” was inscribed on the stone. Through subsequent church-historical research and the efforts of his descendants, his baptismal name was confirmed in August 2001 as “Victorinus.” The process shows how an old martyr's grave gradually recovered the martyr's correct identity through documentary study and the memory preserved by the local Church.

Victorinus Park Dae-sik was beatified by Pope Francis at Gwanghwamun Square in Seoul on August 16, 2014. The grave that his family struggled to recover and preserve immediately after his martyrdom survived through generations; the recovery of his correct baptismal name and his later beatification then gave that memory a formal place in the Church's veneration. In this sense, the tomb directly links an event of the persecution era with the Church's remembrance today.