Myeongdong Cathedral is the seat of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Seoul, consecrated in May 1898 on ground where Korean Catholics had met in secret before the persecutions. It holds relics of martyrs killed in 1866. Through the 1970s and 1980s the cathedral gave sanctuary to demonstrators against military rule and became a fixed point of the democracy movement. It was designated a national historic site in 1977.