Jacques Chastan
Priest of the Paris Foreign Missions, among the first missionaries to enter Korea, beheaded in 1839.
- 19th century
- France
- Feast day September 21
- 1803 – 1839
- Priest
- Missionary
- Martyr
Listen to the life 0:55
Born at Marcoux in Haute-Provence, Jacques Chastan left for Asia at twenty-three and spent six years at the General College of Penang, then three in China and Manchuria, before he could cross into Korea, closed to foreigners on pain of death. He entered Korea secretly at the end of 1836 and reached Seoul on 15 January 1837; there he carried on for two years a nocturnal, itinerant ministry among a community that had almost never seen a priest. Bishop Imbert having already been arrested, he gave himself up together with Pierre Maubant on 6 September 1839, to spare the faithful, and was beheaded at Saenamteo, near Seoul. He is one of the hundred and three Korean martyrs canonised by John Paul II in 1984.
