The first Korean Priest - Beheaded by the river #KoreanChristianity

Happy St Andrew Kim Taegon day! You’ve probably never heard of him but the 20th of September (Today!) is the day the Roman Catholic Church celebrate this Korean priest - one of the most extraordinary figures of the last two centuries. In 1846, Andrew Kim Taegon was beheaded on the banks of the Han River in Seoul. He was only 25 years old – the first native Catholic priest in Korea. Andrew was born into a noble family, but when he was just a boy he watched his father, uncles, and grandfather be killed for practicing a secret foreign faith called Christianity. But this didn’t deter Andrew. After being baptised at 15, he travelled thousands of miles across Korea, China, and even to Macau to train to be a priest. He was ordained in Shanghai after 9 years of training by a French bishop. At 24, he returned to Korea as a missionary where he had a brief but powerful ministry. He encouraged Christians hiding in fear, carried the sacraments across mountain paths, and dreamed of opening Korea to the world. At the time, Christianity was heavily persecuted as a foreign religion and thousands of Christians were tortured and killed.  Andrew was one of them… and so, in 1846 he was tortured and beheaded by the Han River. These were his last words: “This is my last hour of life, listen to me attentively: if I have held communication with foreigners, it has been for my religion and my God. It is for Him that I die. My immortal life is on the point of beginning. Become Christians if you wish to be happy after death” He was canonised by Pope John Paul II in 1984 along with 102 other Korean Martyrs.