SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — Pope Francis beatified 124 Korean martyrs on Saturday, telling hundreds of thousands of people who turned out for his open-air Mass that their ancestors’ willingness to die rather than renounce their faith two centuries ago was a model for Asian missionaries today.

The streets leading up to Seoul’s iconic Gwanghwamun Gate were packed with Koreans honoring the lay Catholics who founded the church here in the 18th century. Korea’s church is unique in that it was founded not by foreign missionary priests — as occurred in most of the world — but by members of Korea’s own noble classes who learned of Christianity by reading books about it.