Namyangseongmo Sanctuary

Overview

The Namyang Marian Shrine is a shrine of the Suwon Diocese in Namyang-dong, Hwaseong-si, Gyeonggi-do, a martyrs’ shrine honoring those martyred without names during the Byeongin Persecution (1866) and a Marian shrine dedicated to the Virgin Mary on October 7, 1991 and proclaimed officially for the first time in the Catholic Church in Korea. It is not a place of Marian apparitions but a shrine created to remember and emulate the deep Marian devotion held by the martyrs of the persecution era, and it is known for a 20-decade rosary prayer path laid out so that the entire shrine forms a single rosary and for the Namyang Virgin Mary Cathedral dedicated in 2023.

History

According to the Digital Hwaseong City Culture Encyclopedia, the Namyang Marian Shrine was developed from 1983 as a martyrs’ shrine commemorating those martyred during the Byeongin Persecution. Namyang was a region that produced martyrs during the Byeongin Persecution, but because the names of most martyrs were unknown, it had long been forgotten. Father Park Ji-hwan, the 3th pastor of Namyang Parish, surveyed the area with local lay leaders including Peter Han Jong-o, collected oral traditions and gathered scattered related records, and after long research became convinced that the Namyang area was a martyrdom site. In March 1983 Father Park held the first Namyang Martyrs Memorial Celebration at Geonneonggol, known as a martyrdom site, and from January 1984 development of the shrine began in earnest, with a cross and an outdoor altar installed and the shrine plaza created.

Father Choi Deok-gi, who took office in January 1986, drew up a master plan for developing the Namyang martyrdom site and worked to purchase land around the shrine, and laid a temporary bridge over the Namyangcheon stream at the shrine entrance to improve access. In June 1987 he erected the statue of Our Lady of Grace at the shrine. Every year on May 3, the feast of the Apostles Saint Philip and Saint James, a martyr reenactment procession moved from Namyang Parish to the shrine and a memorial celebration was held to commemorate Namyang martyrs such as Philip Kim and Philip Jeong. Father Choi changed his plan to carve the 14 Stations of Christ’s Passion to create a Way of the Cross, and instead began making stone rosary beads for praying the rosary.

Father Lee Sang-gak, who took office as pastor in August 1989, combined the Marian faith of his predecessors with his own personal experience of surviving a life-threatening crisis in 1987 through the grace of the Virgin, and planned to change Namyang Shrine from a martyrs’ shrine into a Marian shrine. The diocesan bishop actively supported him, informing him of the church law that a Marian shrine can be established not only at a site of Marian apparitions but also by human resolve. As a result, on October 7, 1991, on the feast of Our Lady of the Rosary, Bishop Kim Nam-su and Apostolic Nuncio Ivan Dias, together with the Suwon Diocese, dedicated the Namyang martyrs’ shrine to the Virgin and proclaimed it as the first Marian shrine of the Catholic Church in Korea.

According to the Good News shrine introduction, in 2006 a Garden of the Merciful Jesus was created and dedicated on the hilltop above the chapel to spread devotion to Divine Mercy, with a 5-decade rosary prayer path for seeking God’s mercy laid around the garden and a Way of the Cross to walk with the Virgin laid below the garden. In 2011, marking the 20th anniversary of the dedication as a Marian shrine, the shrine grounds were renovated, and after a groundbreaking ceremony in May 2016 for the Namyang Virgin Mary Cathedral to pray for inter-Korean reunification and peace, its dedication ceremony was held on March 25, 2023.

The Digital Hwaseong City Culture Encyclopedia states that, as far as has been established so far, the Namyang Marian Shrine is the place where 4 outsiders were brought and martyred during the Byeongin Persecution. Philip Jeong from Yongin was hanged, while Philip Kim, Maria Park his wife, and Thomas Kim Heung-seo were executed together on August 3, 1868. The Suwon Diocese introduction describes the Namyang Marian Shrine as a martyrs’ shrine honoring the martyrs who were martyred without names during the Byeongin Persecution, and records that many martyrs were martyred praying the rosary with rosaries in their hands until the moment of death.

According to the Good News shrine introduction, the Namyang area lay in a militarily strategic coastal area of the West Sea with easy contact with China, so it is presumed that many believers came here in the Joseon period, and many Catholic villages such as Baekhak and Hwalcho were formed nearby. At the Baekhak Catholic village, where earthenware was fired and sold, kiln sites and pottery fragments were found. This Catholic village faces Wangnim across one large field, and was within a day’s walk of Suri Mountain in Anyang, Golbaemasil in Yangji, Mirinae in Anseong, Baeti in Jincheon, and Geolmaeri in Asan, so news could easily be heard during the persecutions.

The Digital Hwaseong City Culture Encyclopedia explains that martyrs from Namyang date back to the Gihae Persecution in 1839, earlier than the Byeongin Persecution. The martyrs of that time were believers who lived the faith at the Gatdeungi Catholic mission chapel in Wangnim-ri, Bongdam-eup, and the representative martyr is Stephen Min Geuk-ga. Min, born in Incheon and formerly living in Seoul, came down to the Gatdeungi Catholic mission chapel around 1828–29 and lived there in 6–7, teaching catechism to children, and appears to have received displaced people fleeing persecution so that a Catholic village was formed. He was arrested during the Gihae Persecution and martyred by hanging on January 30, 1840 at the age of 53. Those from Gatdeungi who were martyred during the Byeongin Persecution include Mark Jeong Ui-bae, beheaded under military order at Saenamteo in Seoul on March 11, 1866 at the age of 72, and James Choi, hanged at Haemi in January 1867.

According to the same source, after the Byeongin Persecution, with the opening of the port in 1876, missionaries of the Paris Foreign Missions Society re-entered the country and rebuilt the old Catholic villages as Catholic mission chapels, and Gatdeungi also became a Catholic mission chapel again. In 1887–88 the Gatdeungi Catholic mission chapel was divided into the Dokjeong-i and Wangnim Catholic mission chapels, and in 1888, with the appointment of Father Andre to Gatdeungi (Wangnim), the Gatdeungi (Wangnim) Parish was established. This is said to be the first parish established in the Suwon Diocese region.

Architecture and Grounds

According to the Suwon Diocese shrine introduction, the Namyang Marian Shrine is surrounded by low hills, and footpaths were made on these hills with a 20-decade rosary prayer path laid along them. Pilgrims pray the rosary while touching one by one the stone rosary beads placed among wildflowers and trees. According to the Good News shrine introduction, the entire shrine is arranged as a single rosary, with a large crucifix and a statue of the Virgin and huge stone rosary beads so large that two adults must spread their arms to embrace them. The Joyful Mysteries rosary prayer path was widened and shaped over more than 10 years as circumstances required, without a design drawing, and the Suwon Diocese explains that seen from the sky the figures of the Virgin and Jesus appear so clearly that it looks as if the icon of the Merciful Virgin has been drawn on the shrine itself.

The Namyang statue of the Virgin is sculpted with the Child Jesus clinging to and hanging from the hem of the Virgin’s garment. At the shrine, a 4-meter-high statue of the Merciful Jesus, which received the apostolic blessing of Pope Benedict 16, is enshrined on the Hill of Divine Mercy (the Suwon Diocese introduction spells it ‘Benedicto 16’).

According to the Catholic Times of May 4, 2025, the shrine church was designed by the world-renowned architect Mario Botta and Andrea Han Man-won. Its exterior is a red-brick building with double circular columns, and it is said to have been built from the start with approval as a basilica in mind. Upon entering the 2-floor church, thin wooden slats set vertically to control light fill the ceiling as wooden louvers, with natural light entering through windows between them. Rare among churches in Korea, there are eight prayer spaces (chapels) beside both rows of columns, housing statues of the Virgin from around the world, among which ‘Our Lady, Undoer of Knots’ was made by artist Lee Su-gyeong inspired by the Pensive Bodhisattva statue and Michelangelo’s Pieta. On each column are framed stones from holy sites in Israel, donated by the late Father Beda An Seon-ho, that came from repairs of the Grotto of the Annunciation in Nazareth, the Garden of Gethsemane, the Grotto in Bethlehem, and Golgotha.

According to the same article, the crucifix above the altar is the work of sculptor and painter Giuliano Banzi (1931–2024), expressed as if floating in the air, and his glass paintings are double-sided works depicting ‘The Life of the Virgin’ and ‘The Last Supper.’ The skylight of the circular column above the altar is oriented so that around the summer solstice, when the church’s orientation and the sun’s altitude coincide, light and shadow appear in the shape of angel wings. The sanctuary was built wider than in other churches with the intention of making it a space where symphony performances are possible, and Botta personally designed the altar, tabernacle, ambo, commentary stand, baptistery, holy-water font, and pipe organ. The wall of the small chapel on the 1 floor is a hanji mural completed by artist Yoo Tae-geun with lacquer and beeswax work on 454 sheets of Mungyeong hanji, the Namyang Mother and Child statue is enshrined in place of the ambo, and the crucifix was made in Naples, Italy at the time of Bishop Saint Alphonsus Maria de Liguori (1696–1787). The Tea Chapel, originally commissioned as a chapel, is being made into a teahouse following the advice of Peter Zumthor, and the article reports that this church received a Catholic art award in February.

The Digital Hwaseong City Culture Encyclopedia writes that the cathedral is used as an open concert hall after completion, and that the Peace Culture Sharing Center will house permanent and special exhibition halls, a performance hall, a library, a global network visitor center, a book cafe, and an art shop (plans as of the time of writing).

Religious Significance and Context for Visits

The Catholic Times series on Korean church history of April 29, 2024 explains that there was neither a Marian apparition nor any particular Marian event in Namyang, and that the Marian shrine could be located in Namyang in order to remember and emulate the deep Marian devotion held by the martyrs of the persecution era. The same series reports that many rosary anecdotes appear in the records of the Byeongin Persecution martyrs. The Suwon Diocese introduction states that the purpose of the shrine is to have the rosary prayed ceaselessly here, dedicated to the Virgin of the rosary, for peace in this land and the sanctification of families. A 2025 Catholic Times article states that the Byeongin Persecution led to 8000 executions over 6 years from 1866, and that the shrine was created in 1991 to honor the unnamed martyrs sacrificed in Namyang Dohobu.

Related Places and People

• Father Park Ji-hwan: 3th pastor of Namyang Parish. He held the first Namyang Martyrs Memorial Celebration in March 1983.
• Father Choi Deok-gi: took office in January 1986, drew up the master plan for shrine development and began making stone rosary beads.
• Father Lee Sang-gak: took office in August 1989, promoted the proclamation as a Marian shrine, and was in charge of the shrine at the time of a 2025 Catholic Times article (Francis Xavier Lee Sang-gak).
• Mario Botta, Andrea Han Man-won, Peter Zumthor, Giuliano Banzi: architects and artists who participated in the architecture and art of the cathedral and shrine.
• Wangnim Church (Gatdeungi): the first parish in the Suwon Diocese region, established in 1888.
• Yodang-ri Shrine: the shrine in Yanggam-myeon, Hwaseong-si where the martyr saint Jang Ju-gi was born and baptized (Digital Hwaseong City Culture Encyclopedia).

References and Sources

1. Digital Hwaseong City Culture Encyclopedia, Tradition of Faith, Gatdeungi-Wangnim Church, Namyang Marian Shrine, Yodang-ri Shrine. Shrine development process after 1983, proclamation as Marian shrine in 1991, Namyang martyrs, Gatdeungi Catholic mission chapel and Wangnim Parish.
   https://hwaseong.grandculture.net/hwaseong/toc/GC08600017
2. Suwon Diocese, Shrine Introduction: Namyang Marian Shrine. Proclamation as Marian shrine, 20-decade rosary prayer path, Namyang statue of the Virgin, statue of the Merciful Jesus.
   https://www.casuwon.or.kr/holyland/intro/12
3. Catholic Good News Internet, Namyang Marian Shrine (Shrines and Historic Sites). Nearby Catholic villages, Garden of the Merciful Jesus in 2006, groundbreaking in 2016, dedication of the cathedral on March 25, 2023.
   https://m.catholic.or.kr/web/holyplace/?seq=2317
4. Catholic Times, [Pilgrimage to Suwon Diocese Churches] Namyang Marian Shrine Church (2025-05-04). Design and interior art of the cathedral, small chapel, Tea Chapel.
   https://www.catholictimes.org/article/20250427500119
5. Catholic Times, [Korean Church History Encountered in the Diocese (23)] Namyang Marian Shrine: Marian devotion in the persecution era (2024-04-29). Purpose of the Marian shrine and Marian devotion in the persecution era.
   https://www.catholictimes.org/article/20240429500178