Jacques Chastan

Jacques Honoré Chastan was a nineteenth-century French Catholic priest of the Paris Foreign Missions Society and a martyr of the Korean mission. He was born in 1803 in Marcoux, a village in the alpine southeast of France, in the historic diocese of Digne (then in the department of Basses-Alpes). Raised in a Catholic setting, he entered clerical formation and joined the seminary of the Société des Missions Étrangères de Paris, the principal French society sending secular priests to East and Southeast Asia. Ordained in the 1820s, he departed for the Asian missions and, after years of work and waiting in the Society’s eastern posts, was assigned to Korea, a kingdom that prohibited Christianity and had already shed much blood in earlier persecutions.

Catholicism in Korea had begun in the late eighteenth century largely through lay scholars and Chinese Christian books, and the community had endured the great persecution of 1801 with almost no priests. In 1836 Chastan entered Joseon in secret, following his confrère Pierre Maubant. The two lived as fugitives, sheltered by Korean Catholics, learning the language and traveling to isolated Christian households to baptize, reconcile penitents, and celebrate the Eucharist. In 1837 they were joined by Laurent-Joseph-Marius Imbert, appointed vicar apostolic, so that a tiny resident clergy and a bishop were at last present in the country. Their ministry depended on Korean catechists and on constant movement to avoid officials.

In 1839 the Gihae persecution was unleashed by the Joseon court. Christianity was again treated as a criminal and foreign sect. As arrests spread and believers were tortured to reveal where the Western priests were hidden, Bishop Imbert decided that continued concealment would only increase the sufferings of the faithful. He called Maubant and Chastan to Seoul to surrender together. The three missionaries gave themselves up, were imprisoned and examined, and were condemned to death. On 21 September 1839 they were beheaded at Saenamteo, an execution site on the Han River in Seoul. Local Christians later recovered their remains.

The Church formally honored their martyrdom in the following century. Chastan was beatified by Pope Pius XI in 1925 among the Korean martyrs of that cause, and was canonized by Pope John Paul II on 6 May 1984 in Seoul as one of the one hundred and three Korean Martyrs. The group is commemorated on 20 September. Chastan is remembered as one of the first resident priests of the modern Korean Catholic Church and as a missionary who chose capture and death in order not to expose Korean Catholics to further torment on his account.