Jeong Yakjong

Jeong Yak-jong (1760–1801) was a scholar of the reign of King Jeongjo in Joseon and the third elder brother of the Silhak thinker Jeong Yak-yong. Though he was the last of the brothers to embrace Catholicism, he helped lead the early Korean Catholic Church, writing the vernacular catechism Jugyo yoji and serving as head of the lay confraternity Myeongdohoe. Baptized Augustine, he held to his faith through persecution and was martyred outside the Seosomun Gate during the Sinyu Persecution of 1801; he was beatified in 2014.