Eun-i Golbae Sacred Site

History & origins

In the first half of the nineteenth century, Catholic villages formed around Euni and Golbaemasil as believers sought refuge from persecution. The name “Euni” itself is explained as meaning a “hidden village.” The most significant turning point in the history of the place came in 1836, when the French missionary Fr. Pierre Maubant baptized the young Kim Tae-gon, gave him First Communion, and selected him as a seminarian. Kim later left for Macao and began the path that would make him Korea’s first Catholic priest.

After being ordained in 1845 at Jingang Church near Shanghai, Fr. Andrew Kim Tae-gon returned to Korea and used Euni as an important pastoral base. According to the Diocese of Suwon, from around November 1845 until Easter 1846 he stayed at the Euni mission station for about six months while caring for Catholics in Seoul and the Yongin area. Euni is therefore remembered not only as the place where his vocation began, but also as one of the places where he actually exercised ministry as Korea’s first native priest.

The development of the shrine involved continuing efforts to preserve places and objects associated with Fr. Kim. A scholarly survey commissioned by Yongin City notes that a statue of Fr. Kim was erected at Golbaemasil in 1961, showing how the area was increasingly organized as a place of commemoration and pilgrimage in the later twentieth century. After the Jingang Church in Shanghai, where Kim had been ordained, was dismantled in 2001, a project was undertaken at Euni to reconstruct the church using related materials and documentation.

On September 24, 2016, the Diocese of Suwon dedicated the new church at Euni Shrine and the Kim Tae-gon Memorial Hall. The reconstructed Jingang Church and the memorial spaces allow pilgrims to remember his vocation and priesthood in one setting, while the pilgrimage route connecting Golbaemasil, Euni, and Mirinae links the memories of his youth, ministry, and the journey of his remains after martyrdom. Today Euni-Golbaemasil Shrine preserves these layers of history as a place for reflecting on the early Korean Catholic community and the life of Korea’s first priest.