St. Andrew Kim Taegon

Who was St. Andrew Kim Taegon?

Andrew Kim Taegon was Korea's first native Catholic priest, and he was a priest for only about thirteen months. Ordained in Shanghai in 1845, he slipped back into Korea, where the Joseon kingdom had outlawed Christianity, and was beheaded in Seoul in September 1846 at the age of 25.

He belongs to a Church with an unusual beginning. Christianity reached Korea through books brought back from China, and, as Pope John Paul II said at the canonization in 1984, the first Korean Christian community was "founded entirely by lay people." For half a century it had almost no priests. Andrew was the first Korean to become one.

His name appears in several spellings because Korean has been romanized in different ways: Kim Taegon, Kim Tae-gon and, in the system South Korea now uses, Kim Dae-geon.

The life of St. Andrew Kim Taegon

A family of martyrs

Andrew was born on August 21, 1821, at Solmoe in South Chungcheong Province, to parents who had become Catholic. Faith cost the family dearly: his father, Ignatius Kim, was martyred in the persecution of 1839. Ignatius was beatified in 1925 and canonized with his son in 1984.

Seminary in Macau

Andrew was baptized at 15. French missionaries, the first to reach Korea, had arrived in 1836, and they sent him to study for the priesthood at the seminary in Macau, on the south China coast, more than a thousand miles away.

The way home

Getting back was the hard part. Korea was closed to foreigners, and its border was watched. Andrew, still a seminarian, was given the job of finding ways to bring missionary priests in secretly. Pope Francis, in a 2023 audience, told how Andrew once walked through snow without eating until he fell, exhausted and close to freezing, and heard a voice say, "Get up, walk!" Andrew got up and saw "something like a shadow of someone guiding him."

After six years abroad he made his way home through Manchuria. That same year, 1845, he crossed the Yellow Sea to Shanghai and was ordained a priest there, in a cathedral, according to Vatican News. Then he went home again.

Arrest and death

Back home, Andrew was assigned to arrange a sea route by which more missionaries could slip past the border patrols. He was arrested doing that work, imprisoned and tortured. Asked by his interrogators whether he was a Catholic, he answered, "Yes, I am a Catholic," according to Vatican News. On September 16, 1846, he was beheaded at Saenamteo, on the bank of the Han River.

On May 6, 1984, Pope John Paul II canonized him and 102 companions in Seoul during his pilgrimage to Korea, the first canonization held outside Rome in modern times, according to Catholic Ireland.

His letters and words

Andrew's letters are kept in Seoul, at the Seosomun Shrine History Museum. Catholic Ireland quotes one of his exhortations: "We have received baptism, entrance into the Church, and the honour of being called Christians. Yet what good will this do us if we are Christians in name only and not in fact?"

Pope Francis drew another lesson from the way Andrew met believers in secret. With prying eyes around, he would look for an agreed sign and then ask under his breath, "Are you a disciple of Jesus?"

Miracles of St. Andrew Kim Taegon

Andrew and the Korean martyrs were canonized as martyrs. The voice that raised him in the snow is a reported experience, told by Pope Francis in his 2023 audience; it has not been examined as a miracle.

Why St. Andrew Kim Taegon is the patron saint of Korean clergy

As the first Korean priest, Andrew is the patron of Korea's clergy. With Paul Chong Hasang, a lay leader martyred in 1839, and their companions, he is also honored as a patron of the Church in Korea. See our patron saints page, and the other Asian martyrs St. Paul Miki of Japan and St. Lorenzo Ruiz of the Philippines.

Symbols of St. Andrew Kim Taegon in art

Korean artists show Andrew as a Joseon-era gentleman rather than in Western vestments. Look for:

• A Korean scholar's robe (dopo) and a black wide-brimmed hat (gat), the dress of a Joseon gentleman.
• A martyr's palm.
• A book or a pen, as in Tjyang's painting, for his learning and his letters.
• Arms opened in blessing, in many recent statues.

His Korean dress makes him easy to recognize. On September 16, 2023, the anniversary of his death, a marble statue of him 12 feet tall was blessed in a niche on the outside of St. Peter's Basilica. It shows him in a dopo with his arms outstretched.

Feast day and where he is honored

The Church keeps the memorial of Sts. Andrew Kim Taegon, Paul Chong Hasang and Companions on September 20, in the General Roman Calendar. Korean Catholics also visit his birthplace at Solmoe, where Pope Francis prayed during his visit to Korea, and Saenamteo, where he died. His remains rest in the memorial church at Mirinae in Anseong, built in 1928. See the feast days calendar.

Prayer to St. Andrew Kim Taegon

The Church's prayer for his feast is the collect of the Roman Missal (as given by Catholic Culture):

O God, who have been pleased to increase your adopted children in all the world, and who made the blood of the Martyrs Saint Andrew Kim Tae-gon and his companions a most fruitful seed of Christians, grant that we may be defended by their help and profit always from their example. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God, for ever and ever.