St. Bishop Berneux
St. Bishop Daveluy
Saint
Andrew Kim Dae-geon and the Venerable Thomas Choe
Yang-eop
The first two Korean priests, St. Andrew Kim Dae-geon and the Venerable Thomas Choe Yang-eop, studied together in Macao before entering Korea as priests. Kim Dae-geon was executed in 1846, a year after returning to Korea. Thomas Choe entered several years later and served as priest for some 10 years before dying of exhaustion. Both wrote about 20 letters in Latin to the French priests who had educated them. English translations of both sets of letters have been made by Brothers Anthony and Han-Yol. The translated letters of Saint Andrew Kim Dae-geon were published in 2021. Those of Thomas Choe were published late in 2022. The Latin (or French) originals can be viewed here:
The letters and reports on the Korean martyrs by St. Andrew Kim Dae-geon.
The letters written by Thomas Choe Yang-eop.
Copies of these books can be purchased through the office of the Royal Asiatic Society, Korea. (email link)
A series of texts in French and Latin about the life and death of Fr. Kim used for his beatification
The first two Korean priests, St. Andrew Kim Dae-geon and the Venerable Thomas Choe Yang-eop, studied together in Macao before entering Korea as priests. Kim Dae-geon was executed in 1846, a year after returning to Korea. Thomas Choe entered several years later and served as priest for some 10 years before dying of exhaustion. Both wrote about 20 letters in Latin to the French priests who had educated them. English translations of both sets of letters have been made by Brothers Anthony and Han-Yol. The translated letters of Saint Andrew Kim Dae-geon were published in 2021. Those of Thomas Choe were published late in 2022. The Latin (or French) originals can be viewed here:
The letters and reports on the Korean martyrs by St. Andrew Kim Dae-geon.
The letters written by Thomas Choe Yang-eop.
Copies of these books can be purchased through the office of the Royal Asiatic Society, Korea. (email link)
A series of texts in French and Latin about the life and death of Fr. Kim used for his beatification
The The “Documents of Mgr Daveluy” consist of five volumes: the first two are collections of his letters.
volume 3: Notes for the introduction to the History of Korea
Volume 4: Notes for the History of the Martyrs of Korea
Volume 5: Notices of the Principal Martyrs of Korea
Volume 6: Letters to the MEP
Volume 8: Letters to his family
Saint
Marie-Nicolas Antoine Daveluy, Bishop
(1818-1866)
Born on March 16, 1818 in Amiens, Antoine Daveluy was ordained on December 18, 1841. After 20 months as vicar in the parish of Roye, he entered the Society of Foreign Missions of Paris. Sent to Macao, he met Bishop Ferréol, third Apostolic Vicar of Korea, who asked him to accompany him in his mission. He accepts and goes to Sanghai where he attends the ordination of Father André Kim Dae-geon, the first Korean priest.
On August 31, 1845, accompanied by his bishop and the new priest, he left Shanghai and after a long and perilous crossing, on October 12, all three arrived clandestinely in Korea. Over the next ten years, he traveled through Christian villages in secret, in the midst of countless difficulties despite very precarious health. In 1856 he was appointed coadjutor to Bishop Berneux, with right of succession and consecrated bishop in Seoul on March 25, 1857. From 1856 he had set himself to the arduous task of collecting documentation concerning the culture, history, administration, geography, the history of the Church in Korea and the deeds of its many martyrs.
Copies of the documents, which he had translated into French, were sent in 1862 to Paris to the superior of the seminary of the Foreign Missions of Paris, Mr. François Antoine Albrand. They served as a source for the "History of the Church of Korea" written by Claude Charles Dallet published in 1874. A year after these documents had been sent to Paris, a fire in Seoul destroyed all the original documents in the house of Mgr. Daveluy.
After having thus collected the acts of the martyrs of Korea, he was himself arrested on March 11, 1866 and beheaded on the 30th of the same month. He was 48 years old and had worked for 21 years in Korea He was canonized on May 6 1984 in Seoul with the 102 other holy martyrs of this country.
His Volume 4: Notes for the History of the Martyrs of Korea, (from the beginning until 1839) was the main source for the earlier part of Dallet's History. The account based on it ends with the end of Chapter 1 of Dallet's Book III. Daveluy says that his source for information about the early years around 1784 are notes written by Jeong Yak-yong aka Dasan.
Chronology of the records of the early martyrs and their 1925 Beatification (Korean text)
Volume 4
Preamble: Hong Iou han, Ni Piek, Ni Seng houn
Chapter 1: The Year 1791
Chapter 2: After 1791
Chapter 3: 1800-1801
Chapter 4: From the end of 1801 to 1815
Chapter 5: From the end of 1815 to 1827
Chapter 6: After 1827
Chapter 7: The Year 1839
