Jeong Yak-jong (1760 – 8 April 1801), also known as ''Augustine Chong'', was a Korean

Catholic The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...

martyr A martyr (, ''mártys'', "witness", or , ''marturia'', stem , ''martyr-'') is someone who suffers persecution and death for advocating, renouncing, or refusing to renounce or advocate, a religious belief or other cause as demanded by an externa ...

who contributed greatly to the spread of Catholicism in

Korea Korea ( ko, 한국, or , ) is a peninsular region in East Asia. Since 1945, it has been divided at or near the 38th parallel, with North Korea (Democratic People's Republic of Korea) comprising its northern half and South Korea (Republic o ...

. He was the older brother of

Jeong Yak-yong Jeong Yak-yong (August 5, 1762 – April 7, 1836) or Chong Yagyong, often simply known as ‘Dasan’ (茶山, one of his ‘ho’ / pen-names meaning ‘the mountain of tea’), was a Korean agronomist, philosopher, and poet. He was one of the ...

and the father of

Paul Chong Hasang Paul Chong Hasang (1794 or 1795–September 22, 1839) was one of the Korean Martyrs. His feast day is September 22, and he is also venerated along with the rest of the 103 Korean martyrs on September 20. Life and career He was the son of the ...

. He wrote the first Catholic catechism using only Korean letters so that he could reach out to the common people as well as the nobles who were the only ones in Korean society who could read Chinese characters. He was first converted to Catholicism himself by the

Chinese Chinese can refer to: * Something related to China * Chinese people, people of Chinese nationality, citizenship, and/or ethnicity **''Zhonghua minzu'', the supra-ethnic concept of the Chinese nation ** List of ethnic groups in China, people of ...

priest A priest is a religious leader authorized to perform the sacred rituals of a religion, especially as a mediatory agent between humans and one or more deities. They also have the authority or power to administer religious rites; in particu ...

Chou Wen-Mu.

References

1760 births 1801 deaths 18th-century venerated Christians 19th-century venerated Christians Converts to Roman Catholicism 19th-century Roman Catholic martyrs Korean beatified people People from Gwangju, Gyeonggi 18th-century Korean people Beatifications by Pope Francis {{RC-bio-stub