History of the Catholic Church in Korea
The Korean Catholic bishops’ own account of their church’s history. It is cited for how that church describes its beginning in 1784, the years of lay leadership and the coming of the first priest.
These articles are a modern summary, not a document of the eighteenth century. They are cited in Korean Scholars Found a Church as the present-day statement of the church concerned about its own origin: that Koreans took up the faith from books, sent one of their number to Beijing for baptism and formed a community before any missionary came. The articles call the period in which lay leaders acted as priests the “pseudo-hierarchy” and say it was begun in good faith and given up when the bishop of Beijing was consulted.
Two of the articles differ slightly on the date: one puts the baptism of Yi Byeok in September 1784, another the founding of the community in October 1784.
Cited in
- 1784, firm date