좌포도청 터

History & origins

One of the earliest major events linking the Left Podocheong directly with Korean Catholic persecution history was the Eulmyo Persecution of 1795. After an attempt to arrest the Chinese missionary Father James Zhou Wen-mo failed, Matthias Choe In-gil, Paul Yun Yu-il, and Saba Ji Hwang were arrested and died after severe punishment at the Left Police Bureau.

After the Sinyu Persecution of 1801, the left and right police bureaus continued to play a central role in arresting and interrogating Catholics from Seoul and Gyeonggi. Some leading believers were transferred to the Ministry of Justice or Uigeumbu, but many others confessed their faith amid imprisonment and punishment at the police bureaus, and some died there.

Over successive persecutions the Left Podocheong became a place associated with the witness of saints, blesseds, and many other Catholics whose names are less well known. The Church preserves the location not simply as the site of a former government office, but as a concentrated place of Christian witness under arrest, interrogation, and punishment.