How Korea evangelized itself

While Christianity, predominantly Protestantism, is now the main religion in South Korea, the story of the country's conversion to the religion of Christ remains astonishing. The "hermit kingdom" approached the true faith on its own at the end of the 18th century, without the direct help of missionaries. The political, intellectual and mystical crisis facing the Land of Morning Calm led its aristocratic ruling caste, the yangban, to question the traditional neo-Confucianism way. Some of these intellectuals, having heard about Catholicism spreading in neighbouring China by Jesuit missionaries, bought books, studied them, were convinced and decided to be baptised. It would be several decades before the hierarchical structures of the universal Church were established in Korea, but from that moment on, the seed of the Word of God was miraculously sown. This occurrence is without parallel anywhere in the world.

Myeong-Dong Cathedral, built in neo-Gothic style, South Korea / © CC BY-SA 4.0/Asacyan

Reasons to believe:

The period in question is very recent and well documented.

The conversion of the first Koreans to Christianity was the result of their own intellectual research: it was the remarkable coherence of Christian doctrine that appealed to them.

The message of Christ was immediately satisfying to the Korean mind. Confucianism, Buddhism and Taoism had been unable to quench that spiritual thirst.

The initial enthusiasm was not a flash in the pan, and the attraction to Christianity was not confined to the intellectual elite: the Christian Church in Korea spread like wildfire throughout the country. In a span of 10 years, the number of Korean Christians went from 0 to 10,000!

This exponential growth is hard to explain considering the absence of European missionaries or priests on Korean soil - until much later. The Christian faith was welcomed spontaneously. Once baptised, the Korean Christians formed communities and insistently asked the bishop of Peking and the Pope to send them priests.

After a rapid and peaceful spread, Christians gradually became undesirable and persecuted. An estimated 10,000 Korean Catholics perished in a century of purges, beginning in the late 1700s and 124 newly beatified martyrs (in 2022) will soon join the 103 current martyr saints.

Even today, more than half of all believers in South Korea are Christians.

Summary:

It all began in the 18th century. Until then, the kingdom of Korea had remained closed to outside influences, particularly Western ones, and therefore to Christianity - even though the Christian faith had been widespread in Asia since the early centuries, under the name of "Nestorianism". However, under the last Korean dynasty (Yi dynasty), the centralised feudalism on which the country was based began to falter: the country witnessed the rise of a bourgeois middle class, both on a commercial and intellectual level, which challenged the traditional aristocratic ruling class and neo-Confucian religion.

It was at this time that a new school of thought, the Korean Confucian social reform movement Sil-hak (which can be translated as "practical studies") was born, with progressive, pragmatic and positivist tendencies: this movement sought to break the deadlock to which neo-Confucianism had led the country. Its intellectuals became acquainted with Jesuit works, published in Chinese and brought to Korea. But while most of its members accepted the scientific and pragmatic aspect of Western thought, they remained initially critical of Catholic religious dogma, especially that of a personal Creator God and life after death.

Towards the end of the century, however, some intellectuals began to be attracted by works that presented the action of the God of the Bible. In 1777, a group of intellectuals organised a meeting to study questions about heaven, the world and man. They compared the books of ancient scholars with the books written by Westerners from Peking. During the meeting, they were convinced of the coherence of Christian doctrine and decided to practice prayer.

Among them was a young Korean intellectual named Hong Yu-han. This young man began to practice a Catholicism based solely on his understanding of these books. He prayed, even celebrating a weekly "Lord's Day" in his own way. Hong Yu-han had a following, including a certain Lee Byeok, who convinced a friend to convert to Catholicism. This friend, Lee Seung-hun (or Yi Seung-Hoon), the son of an ambassador, arranged to be part of the annual embassy that Korea sent to the Chinese emperor, of which it was a vassal, to swear allegiance and receive the year's calendar.

Father de Ventavon, a Jesuit from Peking, wrote on November 25, 1784: "At the end of last year, the ambassadors and their retinue came to visit our church; we gave them religious books. The son of one of these lords, aged 27, a scholar and very well read man, read them eagerly; he saw the truth in them and, grace acting on his heart, he decided to embrace this religion after learning all about it."

Once in Peking, Lee Seung-hun came into contact with Jesuits, including a Frenchman, Father Grammont, to whom he asked to be baptised. As the two men did not speak the same language, they only communicated in writing using Chinese characters. Grammont managed to teach him a basic catechism, and even gave him an exam, which he passed.

With the permission of Lee Seung-hun's father, who was also a member of the embassy, Father Grammont baptised Seung-hun in Peking's North Church in January 1784, and gave him a Christian name, Peter Lee, in reference to the Apostle Peter, to whom Christ had entrusted the task of building the Church. He was the first Korean Christian in history. Peter Lee returned to Korea laden with scholarly and religious books and, inspired by the missionary spirit, began to baptise his fellow countrymen. Because of their Christian practice of equality between persons and their rejection of ancestral rites, considered subversive, the new converts were soon martyred for their faith.

Despite all the challenges, the Christian faith had entered the country, and by purely "providential" means. This gives us another reason to admire once again the abundance and truth of divine graces.

Jacques de Guillebon is an essayist and journalist. He is a contributor to the Catholic magazine La Nef.