Yi Byeok

Yi Byeok (1754–1785) was a scholar of late Joseon and one of the early leaders of Korean Catholicism. Through the study gatherings held at Cheonjinam he embraced Western Learning as a religious faith, and together with Yi Seung-hun and Gwon Il-sin he is counted among the founders of the Joseon Catholic Church. He is credited with composing the "Cheonju gonggyeongga" (Hymn of Reverence for the Lord of Heaven), and he stands at the starting point of a self-arising Catholicism in which Koreans formed a faith community on their own, without foreign missionaries.