The Catholic Persecution of 1866, known in Korea as the Byeong-in Persecution (Korean: 병인박해; Hanja: 丙寅迫害), refers to the large-scale persecution of Catholics that took place in Joseon in 1866 under the regency of Heungseon Daewongun during the third year of King Gojong 's reign.[1] The persecution lasted for six years until 1872, during which more than 8,000 laypeople and many missionaries from the Paris Foreign Missions Society were executed.
Heungseon Daewongun originally had no antipathy toward Catholicism, so he had no plans to suppress it.[2][3] In fact, he even tried to block Russia's southward expansion policy by seeking help from France through French missionaries. However, he implemented a policy of persecution of Catholicism in order to prevent his political position from being shaken by internal and external changes.
The anti-Catholic policy, which began in the spring of 1866, became more severe after the General Sherman Incident (August 1866), the Byeong-in Yangyo (October 1866), and was further entrenched when in 1868 German merchant Ernst Oppert attempted to take hostage the bones of the Daewongun's father in order to force him to open Korea to trade;[4] and even further so after the 1871 American attack of Gwanghwado,[5] all of which strengthened the Heungseon Daewongun government's isolationist and anti-Catholic policies.[6]