Yi Seung-hun Tomb

This is the tomb of Yi Seung-hun (1756–1801), the first Korean to be baptised into the Catholic faith. Yi was born in Jungnim-dong, Seoul, the son of Yi Dong-uk, a second state councillor, and became a jinsa (a successful candidate in the lower civil service examination), but never took office, devoting himself instead to scholarship. Yi accompanied his father to Qing China, where he studied Catholic doctrine at the Beijing Catholic church and was baptised by Father de Grammont, who gave him the name Peter, meaning "become the cornerstone of the Korean church", making him Korea's first baptised Catholic. In 1785 Yi founded Korea's first Catholic church at the house of Kim Beom-u, from a family of interpreters, in Myeong-dong, Seoul, holding regular meetings and teaching doctrine to believers, and so advanced the Joseon Catholic church. After repeatedly apostatising and returning to the faith, he was beheaded outside Seosomun Gate in 1801, the first year of King Sunjo, together with Jeong Yak-jo, Choe Chang-hyeon, Hong Gyo-man and Hong Nak-min, during the Sinyu Persecution of Catholics. Although he apostatised several times, Yi was a pioneer who sowed the seed of Catholicism in Joseon; his remains were buried at Chogoksan Mountain behind the Namdong Water Purification Plant in Mansu-dong, but were moved in 1981 to Cheonjinam, a Catholic holy site in Gwangju-gun, Gyeonggi-do, and today only a gravestone and an empty burial site remain, together with the graves of his sons Taek-gyu and Sin-gyu.

AI Translation

Where it is

Region

Namdong-gu, Incheon

Designation

Provincial Monument · 시도기념물