Suwon Hwaseong Martyrs' Shrine

History & origins

The martyrdom history of the Suwon Hwaseong area is concentrated in the years of the Byeongin Persecution, 1866–1873. At the military-police office, prison grounds, markets, and other sites connected with the Suwon administrative center, records identify more than eighty Catholics who died, while many additional martyrs remain unnamed. They were executed or died through methods including beheading, strangulation, beating, and imprisonment. The events show how the political and military history of Suwon Hwaseong intersects directly with the history of Catholic persecution.

After the persecutions ended, Catholic life in Suwon gradually took root again. In 1932 the city's first Gothic-style Catholic church, the old Suwon church, was built, together with a bronze bell made in France. A stone building completed in 1954 for the former Sohwa Elementary School was later registered as National Registered Cultural Heritage No. 697 and is now used as the Paully Gallery. The present church was built in 1979, and relics of saints are enshrined at the main altar and in the underground chapel.

The area long retained the memory of the martyrs and was officially proclaimed a martyr shrine by the Diocese of Suwon on September 20, 2000. Since then, prayer for the martyrs and for causes of beatification and canonization, walking pilgrimages, and retreats have made this historic urban site an active place of Catholic memory. Its history is layered: late-Joseon persecution, the growth of modern Catholic parish and educational institutions, and the formal establishment of a contemporary shrine all occupy the same space.