Yun Ji-chung (尹持忠, 1759 – 8 December 1791) was a Catholic believer in late Joseon and the first Korean Catholic martyr. His family seat was Haenam, his courtesy name was Uyong (禹庸), and his baptismal name was Paul. He burned ancestral spirit tablets, abolished ancestral rites, and held his mother's funeral according to Catholic custom, for which he was executed by Decapitation. He was beatified by Pope Francis on 16 August 2014.1 On 1 September 2021, the Jeonju Diocese of the Catholic Church announced that Yun Ji-chung's remains had been discovered in early March 2021 at Baubaegi in Chonam-i Shrine, during work to develop the site into a sacred memorial.23
Biography
Birth and upbringing
He was born in Janggochi, Jinsan County, Jeolla Province (present-day Dosan-ri, Byeolgok-myeon, Geumsan County, South Chungcheong Province).4 He belonged to the Haenam Yun clan. Yun Seon-do was his sixth-generation ancestor, and his great-grandfather was Yun Du-seo. His ancestors had lived in Haenam for generations, but his father, Yun Gyeong, left Haenam and moved to Jinsan, where many of his maternal relatives of the Andong Kwon clan lived. His father did not enter government service and lived as an ordinary scholar in a quiet village at the foot of Mount Daedun.5 His paternal aunt, Yun So-on, married Jeong Jae-won, the father of Jeong Yak-yong, and gave birth to Jeong Yak-yong; therefore Jeong Yak-yong was Yun Ji-chung's first cousin once removed.6 Through this connection, he naturally became acquainted with Jeong Yak-yong's brothers and with Jeong's brother-in-law, Yi Seung-hun. Politically, he belonged to the Southern Faction. At that time, King Jeongjo employed Southern Faction members in a policy of balanced appointments (탕평책) to check the Western Faction, which opened opportunities for Southern Faction men to take government posts. Yun Ji-chung aspired to office and took the civil service examination, passing the Saengwon examination in 1783 (the 7th year of Jeongjo's reign).
Conversion to Catholicism
After passing the Saengwon examination in 1783, Yun Ji-chung went to the capital. There, through his first cousin Jeong Yak-yong, he encountered Catholic teachings and took part in the "Myeongnye-bang Community" held at the house of the interpreter Kim Beom-u.7 He obtained the Tianzhu Shiyi (《천주실의》) and the Qike (《칠극》) and returned to his hometown.8 He studied the doctrine on his own and learned what he lacked from Jeong Yak-jong. In 1787 he was baptized by Yi Seung-hun, with Jeong Yak-jeon as his godfather, and became a member of the Church.910 In 1789 he went to Beijing, received the sacrament of confirmation, and returned to Joseon.11 After the Myeongnye-bang incident (1785) and the Banghoe incident (1787), persecution of Catholics intensified, including the burning of Catholic books, so he withdrew to his hometown and lived quietly. During this period he taught the doctrine to his mother, his younger brother Yun Ji-heon, and his maternal cousin Kwon Sang-yeon, leading them to accept the Catholic faith.
Abolition of ancestral rites
In 1790, Bishop Gouvea, head of the Beijing diocese, issued a prohibition on ancestral rites to Korean Catholics. Kwon Sang-yeon, Yun Ji-chung's maternal cousin, burned the spirit tablets kept in his household, buried the ashes, and no longer held ancestral rites.12 Yun Ji-chung also abandoned the rites but left the spirit tablets in place.13 This provoked outrage among his clan members, and scholars in the surrounding area condemned him harshly. Yun Ji-chung defended himself, arguing that the state did not strictly enforce the non-enshrinement of spirit tablets by commoners, and that it was not contrary to propriety for impoverished scholars to be unable to perform ancestral rites. He said that, although he had committed a transgression as a member of the yangban elite in order to keep his doctrine, he had not violated any law prohibited by the state, thereby declaring his own conviction. Confucian ritual, he maintained, was not prescribed by law but was a custom of the yangban class.14
The Jinsan Incident
In May 1791, Yun Ji-chung's mother, of the Andong Kwon clan, died after leaving a last instruction that he must not do anything contrary to the teachings of the Church.14 Unfortunately, at that time an epidemic spread through the surrounding region, and the local government banned travel, so Yun Ji-chung could not hold the funeral.14 He was finally able to conduct the burial on the last day of August. Everything was carried out according to traditional customs, but he did not make a spirit tablet and did not hold ancestral rites. During the funeral, few mourners attended because of the epidemic, and there were few entries in the register of condolence visitors.14 Suspicious mourners spread rumors that, along with the failure to make a spirit tablet, he had deliberately obstructed the condolences and performed the burial in secret according to Catholic custom. Even more absurd and exaggerated rumors circulated, claiming that he had abandoned his mother's corpse.14
As these alarming rumors spread to Seoul, they became a pretext for factional struggles among court officials and the incident grew. Eventually, a royal order was issued to Sin Sa-won, the magistrate of Jinsan, to arrest Yun Ji-chung and Kwon Sang-yeon and investigate the facts. When the arrest order was issued, Yun Ji-chung fled to Gwangju in Gyeonggi Province, and Kwon Sang-yeon fled to Hansan. Upon learning that the Jinsan magistrate had arrested Yun Ji-chung's uncle, Yun Deung, Yun Ji-chung surrendered himself that October, and Kwon Sang-yeon was soon arrested as well.15
Yun Ji-chung's defense
Sin Sa-won, the Jinsan magistrate, pressed them to renounce the faith and subjected them to severe torture, but neither man abandoned his beliefs.16 After failing to win them over, the magistrate transferred them to the Jeolla Provincial Office in Jeonju.17 Yun Ji-chung confessed everything during the interrogation by the Jeolla governor, Jeong Min-si, and argued as follows: "I repeat that even if I am stripped of my yangban title for believing in Catholicism, I do not wish to sin against God. Moreover, please consider that commoners who do not enshrine spirit tablets do not thereby oppose the government, and that yangban who cannot perform all rites as prescribed due to poverty are not subjected to severe reproach. Therefore, in my humble opinion, not enshrining spirit tablets, not offering rites to the dead, and faithfully believing in Catholicism in my own home does not seem to violate national law at all."18 However, Yun Ji-chung's defense was not accepted.19
Sentencing
Although the two men were subjected to repeated interrogations and severe Torture at the Jeolla Provincial Office and still refused to abandon their faith, the Jeolla governor submitted a report to the court about them. As calls grew at court for their execution, King Jeongjo finally approved the execution and ordered the pursuit of Yi Seung-hun and Kwon Il-shin, who were identified as Catholics. Refusing to perform ancestral rites was seen as a denial of "filial piety" (효), the core of Confucianism, and this in turn was a denial of "loyalty" (충) to the king, the parent of the nation. The adherence to this ideology of "having no father and no ruler" (무부무군) was regarded as an attempt to negate and challenge the ruling system of Joseon itself, which was supported by Confucian ideology. Therefore, Catholics had to be denounced as a "group that resented the state and sought to overturn the world," and dealt with as a treasonous conspiracy and sent to the execution ground. Thus, the Catholic Church, as seen by the Joseon ruling class, was an evil religion that challenged the system and orthodoxy.20 Since King Jeongjo had already defined Catholicism as a heterodox religion after the Banghoe incident in 1787,21 there was no problem in sentencing them to death.
Martyrdom
Yun Ji-chung and Kwon Sang-yeon were beheaded in succession on 8 December 1791 (13th day of the 11th lunar month) outside the south gate of Jeonju (on the site of present-day Jeondong Cathedral), on charges of corrupting social morality and believing in a heterodox religion.2223 At the time, Yun Ji-chung was 32 years old and Kwon Sang-yeon was 40. In connection with this case, Yi Seung-hun and Kwon Il-shin were arrested. Yi Seung-hun was released after his defense that he had already renounced the faith was accepted, but he was stripped of his official post.2425 Kwon Il-shin renounced the faith at the urging of his aged mother,2627 and his place of exile was changed from Jeju to Yesan; however, while on the way to Yesan he died of jang-dok (杖毒), the aftereffects of torture.28 Meanwhile, Jinsan County was demoted to a hyeon for five years, and Sin Sa-won, the Jinsan magistrate who had responded leniently at the beginning, was sentenced to exile.2930
Legacy
Jeondong Cathedral
The site where the present-day Jeonju Jeondong Cathedral stands is where many Catholics, including Yun Ji-chung, Kwon Sang-yeon, Yun Ji-heon, and Yu Hang-geom, were martyred. In 1908, Father Boudre built Jeondong Cathedral to commemorate their martyrdom. During the Japanese colonial period, when a road was built, the city wall near Pungnammun of the Jeonju fortress was demolished, and stones from it were taken and used as the foundation stones of the cathedral, reportedly including a stone that was splattered with blood when Yun Ji-chung was beheaded.313233 Jeondong Cathedral, together with Myeongdong Cathedral and Gyesan Cathedral, is among the oldest church buildings in Korea and is designated as National Monument No. 288, Historic Site. A statue depicting Yun Ji-chung's martyrdom stands on one side of the cathedral.34 In August 2014, during his visit to Korea, Pope Francis declared the beatification of 124 Korean Catholic martyrs, and Yun Ji-chung was installed as the first of the 124 blessed.35
Yun Ji-chung's diary
Yun Ji-chung kept a diary during his imprisonment, but it has not survived to the present day. It recorded his practice of the Catholic faith, the interrogation process after his arrest, and his life in prison, and it is said to have been copied out after his martyrdom and widely read. In the Sinyu Persecution of 1801, the official record Sahak Jingui (《사학징의》) listed among the books seized from Catholics a record titled Join Jichung Ilgi (《죄인지충일기》), but neither the Chinese-script nor the Korean-script version has been found to date. However, some of its content is introduced in Dallet's Histoire de l'Église de Corée (《한국천주교회사》).36
Aftermath
Factional strife
King Jeongjo wished to conclude the persecution of Catholics without further expanding it. This measure was partly because many of those close to him had been drawn toward Catholicism.37 He also tried to curb the spread of Catholicism, including by burning Western books in Chinese translation that were held in the Hongmungwan. However, contrary to King Jeongjo's intentions, the court became divided over this incident between the so-called Sinseo faction, centered on Chae Je-gong, a Southern Faction member who was then the prime minister (相國), and the so-called Gongseo faction, led by Hong Ui-ho and others who opposed them. The conflict and factional strife arising from the Jinsan Incident continued for over ten years, until the Sinseo faction suffered a decisive blow in the Sinyu Persecution of 1801.38
Missionary activities
As Catholicism became the target of political and religious persecution due to the Sinhae Persecution, many yangban-class believers wavered and drifted away after renouncing the faith.39 Their places were filled by people of the jungin class. Despite the persecution, by around 1794 the number of believers had increased to about 4,000, and Bishop Gouvea of the Chinese Church resumed the dispatch of missionaries that had been postponed because of the Jinsan Incident.40 In early 1795, the Chinese priest Zhou Wenmo, who had secretly entered Seoul, was soon subject to an arrest order,41 and he had no choice but to work in secret. However, with the help of Kang Wan-suk and others, within five years the strength of the Church approached 10,000.42
Other matters
This incident threw the family of Jeong Yak-yong into great shock, because Yun Ji-chung was Jeong Yak-yong's first cousin once removed. Jeong Yak-yong and his second elder brother, Jeong Yak-jeon, renounced the faith following this incident and completely cut ties with Catholicism, but they were attacked by Western Faction scholars because they were relatives of Yun Ji-chung and because the person who had introduced Catholicism to Yun Ji-chung was Jeong Yak-yong.43 Jeong Yak-yong's third elder brother, Jeong Yak-jong, kept his faith, refused ancestral rites at home in accordance with the doctrine, and after a period of conflict, took his wife and children and moved across the Han River to the branch office in Yanggeun.44
The doctrine rejecting ancestral rites became widely known and was later used as a justification for the persecution of Catholics.
Remains excavation
On 1 September 2021, according to an announcement by the Jeonju Diocese of the Catholic Church, the remains of Yun Ji-chung, Kwon Sang-yeon, and Yun Ji-heon were excavated. It was reported that in March of that year, during work to develop the Chonam-i Shrine at Baubaegi in Namgye-ri, Isseo-myeon, Wanju County, Jeollabuk-do into a sacred memorial, the remains and artifacts that were unearthed were thoroughly examined and confirmed to be those of the three martyrs.2 Yun Ji-heon was the younger brother of Yun Ji-chung and was martyred in the Sinyu Persecution of 1801; he was beatified in 2014.
After the excavation, radiocarbon dating of the artifacts also showed that the period of construction of the grave matched the year 1791, when the three were martyred. For the remains, a sex determination, an age estimate based on teeth and degree of ossification, an anatomical examination, and a paternal Y-chromosome test (Y-STR) were carried out, leading to the conclusion that the remains are certainly those of the martyrs. It was reported that the neck vertebrae of the remains of Yun Ji-chung and Kwon Sang-yeon showed "sharp-instrument injuries" from being cut with a sharp tool, confirming that they had been beheaded.2
Finding the graves of Yun Ji-chung and Kwon Sang-yeon, who are recorded as the first martyrs in the history of the Korean Catholic Church, had been a task for the Korean Church. The Sahak Jingui (邪學懲義), a collection compiled from records of the Joseon government concerning the persecution of Catholics, mentions only that the graves of Yun Ji-chung and Kwon Sang-yeon existed, without recording their specific location.3 Although it had long been passed down orally that the martyrs' graves were at Baubaegi, the remains were excavated this time for the first time in 230 years.
Family
- Great-grandfather: Yun Du-seo (尹斗緖, 1668 – 1715)
- Great-grandmother: Jeonju Yi clan (daughter of Yi Hyeong-jing (李衡徵))
- Grandfather: Yun Deok-ryeol (尹德烈, fifth son of Yun Du-seo, 1698–1745)45
- Grandmother: Sunheung An clan (daughter of Jinsa (進士) An Je-man (安濟萬))
- Father: Yun Gyeong (尹憬), engaged in traditional medicine
- Mother: Andong Kwon clan (daughter of Kwon Gi-jing (權沂徵))
※ Family reference sources446
Notes