The Haemi International Sanctuary (; ) is a Roman Catholic martyrdom shrine located at 13, Seongji 1-ro, Haemi-myeon, Seosan-si, Chungcheongnam-do, South Korea. The area where the sanctuary is situated is also commonly referred to as "Yeosutgol."
During the Catholic Persecution of 1866, the Haemi military camp () was tasked with identifying and punishing Catholics. Consequently, believers captured within the jurisdiction of the Haemi-hyeon government office—spanning Chungcheong Province and Pyeongtaek in Gyeonggi Province—were brought to the Haemieupseong. During the six-year persecution that lasted until 1872, more than 1,000 captured Catholics were executed or buried alive at this site.
In 1935, Father Peter Barraux, a parish priest from the Seosan Catholic Church (now ), exhumed some of the martyrs' remains, bringing the mass killings perpetrated by government forces to public light. The excavated remains were temporarily interred at the Sanghong-ri Mission before being relocated back to the current site in 1995 for preservation. The sanctuary was established following promotional and fundraising campaigns aimed at Catholic believers to secure the land, with construction being completed on June 17, 2003.
In 2014, the Holy See recognized three of the Haemi martyrs by elevating them to beati (the Blessed), an object of public veneration in the Catholic Church. In August of the same year, Pope Francis visited South Korea for the beatification ceremony and personally visited the Haemi Martyrdom Holy Ground.
Etymology During the Catholic Persecution of 1866, government forces brought a large number of Catholics to Haemieupseong for execution. As the number of prisoners grew, officials began executing them by burying them alive along the banks of the nearby Haemi Stream. Led from the prison cells, the prisoners instinctively sensed their impending martyrdom and prayed aloud, crying out "Jesus, Mary" (, Yesu Maria) as they were dragged to the stream.
To the local villagers, however, the phrase "Jesus, Mary" sounded like "Yeosu-meori" (). This mishearing was an example of a mondegreen, where unfamiliar foreign words are phonetically reinterpreted as native phrases. Since "Yeosu" is a local dialect word for fox (), the villagers, unable to comprehend the religious faith of the victims, believed that the Catholics were bewitched by foxes and deserved their fate. As a result of this linguistic misunderstanding, the valley came to be known as "Yeosutgol."
Historical background
Haemiupseong Fortress
During the early Joseon period, HaemiThe name "Haemi" (海美) originated in 1407 (the 7th year of King Taejong's reign) when Jeonghae-hyeon (貞海縣) and Yeomi-hyeon (餘美縣) were merged; the name was created by combining the first character of Jeonghae (海) and the second character of Yeomi (美). During the Goryeo dynasty, the Seosan region was divided into four districts: Jeonghae, Yeomi, Buseong, and Jigok. Jeonghae corresponded to the modern-day Haemi-myeon area. Yeomi, originally called Yeochon-hyeon during the Three Kingdoms Baekje period, was renamed Yeomi-hyeon in the early Goryeo period. served as the headquarters of the Chungcheong Army Discipline Command. Although the headquarters moved to Cheongju in 1651, Haemi remained a strategic military outpost garrisoning approximately 1,400 to 1,500 troops.
The military commandant (Yeongjang) of the garrison concurrently held the civilian post of the Haemi county magistrate (Hyeongam). Under the pretext of coastal defense for the Naepo region in western Chungcheong, the magistrate was granted the authority to summarily execute political criminals and state offenders. Haemi's jurisdiction extended across Chungcheong Province and as far as Pyeongtaek in Gyeonggi Province. Consequently, whenever Catholic believers were arrested within this territory, they were transferred to Haemiupseong Fortress. There, they underwent severe torture, with final executions taking place outside the West Gate of the fortress or along the nearby Haemi Stream (Yeosutgol).[해미순교성지] 공식 웹사이트-해미순교성지의 역사
The first martyrs of Haemi were In Eon-min (Martin) and Lee Bo-hyeon (Francis), both of whom were beaten to death on January 9, 1800. Prior to the of 1839, a total of eight Catholics died there, including Kim Jin-hu (Pius), the great-grandfather of Korea's first priest, Andrew Kim Taegon, who died in prison in 1814. During the Catholic Persecution of 1866, 132 individuals were recorded as martyred; adding 47 unnamed victims, at least 179 people were martyred within Haemiupseong Fortress itself. When including those who perished along the Haemi Stream, the total number of victims is estimated to exceed 1,000.
Historical accounts note that the two major prison facilities within the fortress were perpetually overcrowded with Catholics dragged over the Hanti Pass from the broader Naepo region. In the former prison yard stands a prominent castor-aralia tree (known locally as the Hoya tree), whose branches still bear the marks where prisoners had their hands and hair tied up to be suspended and tortured.유홍준 <나의 문화유산답사기> 창작과비평사 1993년 p122 In the 1950s, local members of the Haemi Catholic community pooled their resources to acquire roughly 6,000 square meters of this former prison site and erected a mission hall. However, in 1982, under cultural heritage preservation policies, the government demolished the hall, partially compensating and partially requisitioning the land, and erected a new commemorative monument in its place. Since then, official permission to develop the site into an ecclesiastical sanctuary has been withheld.
Byeongin Persecution
Catholicism, introduced to Korea via China, expanded significantly toward the end of the 18th century. However, the growth of Catholicism—which rejected core Confucian values—was perceived by the ruling class as a direct challenge to Confucian society and a threat to the state hierarchy. While the church's influence temporarily waned during the Sinyu Persecution (1801) and the (1839), it steadily recovered over time. Heungseon Daewongun, who assumed power in 1864, initially had a deep understanding of Catholicism and harbored no immediate intent to suppress it. However, after the Qing dynasty shifted its policy toward persecuting Catholics, opposing political factions in Korea launched a series of domestic political offensives. To consolidate and maintain his political power, Heungseon Daewongun officially decreed a nationwide ban and persecution of Catholicism in 1866.
Thousands of Catholics were arrested in the capital and provinces, resulting in the execution of more than 8,000 people across the nation. Intensified by the events of the French expedition to Korea, the persecution persisted for six years until shortly after the United States expedition in 1871. It grew exceptionally severe after 1868 following the tomb desecration incident targeting the grave of Namyeon-gun, the father of Heungseon Daewongun.
The Haemi military garrison, which held combined administrative and military jurisdiction over northwestern Chungcheong Province, was strictly charged with rooting out and punishing local Catholics. During this prolonged campaign, more than 1,000 Catholics captured from various towns across Chungcheong Province were put to death in Haemi.
Martyrdom and establishment of the sanctuary
Martyrdom (Mass burials)
Captured Catholics were held in two prison facilities inside Haemiupseong Fortress before being executed. According to historical records, 67 individuals are documented by Church sources, 65 by government sources, and 47 are registered as unnamed martyrs. However, the actual number of undocumented victims is estimated to be countless. Under the independent jurisdiction of the Haemi garrison commander, high-status prisoners whose execution might invite subsequent political scrutiny were transferred to higher-level administrative centers, such as Hongju (modern-day Hongseong) or Gongju; these transfers and names remain preserved in historical logs.
Conversely, the vast majority of those executed at Haemiupseong Fortress or Yeosutgol were commoners who were not transferred. They were slaughtered indiscriminately without formal trials or administrative records. Furthermore, following the French expedition to Korea in October 1866, the central government issued a decree of seoncham hugye (, "execute first and report later"), allowing the Haemi garrison to independently carry out executions. Preoccupied or indifferent, local officials often omitted reporting these deaths or failed to maintain records, leading to a much higher number of anonymous martyrs.
Initially, executions were carried out one by one outside the West Gate of Haemiupseong Fortress using methods such as hanging, decapitation, beating to death, stoning, asphyxiation using wet paper (), and freezing to death. Over time, even more brutal methods were devised. One such method was 'jarigaejil',Seong Se-jeong, In Search of Traces of Living History (살아있는 역사의 흔적을 찾아서), Youngjin.com, 2003, p. 196. in which executioners lifted the prisoner's body on a stone bridge and slammed them down as if threshing sheaves of grain, smashing their heads. The stone used in this process, measuring 4.2 meters in length and 1.5 meters in width, was named 'Jarigaedol' and is currently preserved and displayed outside the West Gate. Catholics were also tied with wire lines to an ancient to be tortured or hanged.Seong Se-jeong, In Search of Traces of Living History (살아있는 역사의 흔적을 찾아서), Youngjin.com, 2003, p. 196. In some instances, multiple people were laid side-by-side and crushed to death by dropping stone pillars simultaneously; it is said that if any bodies were seen twitching, executioners would sear their eyeballs with torches. Consequently, records state that the area outside the West Gate of the Haemi garrison always formed a mountain of corpses of the Catholic prisoners, and their blood formed a stream.
During the height of the grand persecutions between 1866 and 1868, authorities resorted to mass live burials to facilitate the efficient disposal of the surging number of bodies. Groups of over a dozen Catholics were led to fields west of the garrison, where large pits were dug in easily excavatable spots, and the living victims were pushed in and buried with soil and gravel. Before the Catholic Church officially designated this area as a holy site, local farmers frequently struck discarded human bones with their agricultural tools. Many of the unearthed skeletons were found standing vertically, providing archaeological evidence of live burials. During the summer, when fewer prisoners were held, executioners avoided the labor of digging pits by binding the prisoners and drowning them in a deep pool in the middle of a nearby stream. This body of water became known as Jaein-dumbeong ("sinners' pond"), which has corrupted over time into its current name, Jin-dumbeong.
Interviews and testimonies of eyewitnesses Father Pierre Barraux (1903–1946), a French missionary appointed to the Seosan Catholic Church on August 5, 1932, began traveling extensively throughout Haemi and Seosan in 1935 to gather oral histories from eyewitnesses of the persecutions. After a lengthy search, he located Lee Ju-pil, who lived outside the West Gate of Haemi, and Park Seung-ik, a resident of Eumam. Aged 84 and 85 respectively at the time of the interviews, both men had personally witnessed the executions of Catholics in Haemi around 1868. Being 17 and 18 years old at the time, they vividly recalled the gruesome events.