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Biography

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Protasius Chŏng Kuk-bo was born in 1799 in Songdo (the historical name of present-day Kaesong) in the kingdom of Joseon. Surviving accounts say little of his parentage or childhood. He is described as a layman of markedly violent and impatient temper who encountered Catholicism only as an adult. He received baptism at about the age of thirty and took the Christian name Protasius. After conversion he made a sustained effort to restrain the irascibility for which he had been known.

The Catholic Church in early nineteenth-century Korea existed under legal prohibition. The Joseon state treated Christianity as a heterodox teaching that threatened Confucian hierarchy and loyalty to the throne, and successive edicts prescribed severe penalties for converts. Communities of believers nevertheless persisted, often for long stretches without resident clergy. Chŏng lived as a married lay Catholic in this clandestine setting. Contemporary hagiographical notices record that he was married but do not preserve his wife’s name or state whether the couple had children.

In 1839 the Kihae persecution broke out. Chŏng was arrested and tortured. Under duress he recanted his faith and was released. Remorse followed at once: according to the traditional accounts he could neither eat nor sleep. He then went voluntarily before the authorities, withdrew his apostasy, and again professed himself a Christian. He was returned to prison and subjected to further beatings.

He died in prison in Seoul on 20 May 1839 from the effects of those tortures. He is counted among the Korean Catholics put to death in the persecution of that year. His body was not given a recorded public burial of the kind later associated with some of the better-known martyr sites.

Protasius Chŏng Kuk-bo was beatified by Pope Pius XI on 5 July 1925 among the seventy-nine Korean martyrs of that decree, and was canonized by Pope John Paul II on 6 May 1984 in Seoul together with 102 companions. In the General Roman Calendar he is commemorated on 20 September with the other Saint Martyrs of Korea.

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