On This Day: Three Missionaries Executed in Korea After Choosing to Surrender

On 21 September 1839, Bishop Laurent-Joseph-Marius Imbert and fellow French missionaries Pierre-Philibert Maubant and Jacques-Honoré Chastan were executed near Seoul during one of the most severe persecutions of Korea’s early Catholic community.

All three had been working secretly in Joseon Korea, where Christianity was prohibited and believers faced arrest, torture and pressure to renounce their faith.

Yet one of the most striking parts of their story came before their deaths.

Imbert surrendered to the authorities while Christians around him were being arrested and tortured. Historical missionary accounts say he believed the capture of the foreign missionaries might reduce the pressure being placed upon Korean believers.

It was a decision that would ultimately cost him his life.

“The Good Shepherd Gives His Life for His Sheep”

After Imbert was taken into custody, Maubant and Chastan remained in hiding.

Imbert then sent instructions asking them to surrender as well.

His message drew explicitly upon Christ’s description of the good shepherd laying down his life for his sheep. He told the two priests to come to the authorities, but instructed that no Korean Christian should accompany them.

Maubant and Chastan obeyed.

Historical records indicate that they surrendered on 6 September 1839, after writing farewell letters explaining their decision. They were subsequently imprisoned alongside Imbert.

The three missionaries were interrogated and tortured. Authorities sought information about the Christians with whom they had been working, but the missionaries refused to reveal them.

They were condemned to death.

On 21 September 1839, Imbert, Maubant and Chastan were taken to Saenamteo, near Seoul, and executed by beheading. The Paris Foreign Missions Society records the same date and location in its historical accounts of the missionaries.

A Church Under Persecution

Their deaths occurred during the Gihae Persecution of 1839, when Korean Catholics were subjected to arrests and pressure to abandon Christianity.

The three Frenchmen were not its only victims.

Korean men and women also died for refusing to renounce their faith, and it was Korean Christians who had sustained Catholicism in the country even before foreign priests were able to establish a permanent presence.

A modern Korean academic study of the persecution describes the authorities using both torture and inducements to obtain apostasy, with the number of martyrs increasing as the campaign intensified.

Imbert appears to have believed that surrendering the missionaries could help bring that suffering to an end.

Whether his calculation was correct is less important to understanding his decision than what he was prepared to risk.

He did not surrender because he had abandoned his mission.

He surrendered because he believed the shepherd should face danger before allowing more of the flock to suffer.

Remembered Among the Korean Martyrs

Nearly 145 years later, the three missionaries were included among the 103 Korean Martyrs canonised by Pope John Paul II in Seoul on 6 May 1984.

Their story therefore survives as one chapter in the much larger history of Korean Christians who maintained their faith despite persecution.

But Imbert’s decision before his execution remains particularly powerful.

When hiding offered the possibility of extending his own life, he concluded that remaining hidden could expose other Christians to still greater suffering.

So he stepped out.

Maubant and Chastan subsequently did the same.

On this day in 1839, three missionaries lost their lives in Korea. Their final journey began with a decision that the safety of the shepherds should not come before the lives of the flock.

Sources

• Paris Foreign Missions Society — Laurent Imbert
• Paris Foreign Missions Society — Pierre Maubant
• Historical biographies of the missionaries
• College General — Martyrs