Biographical Note
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"Where does our greatest victory lie? Martyrdom! Those who know this secret long for martyrdom day and night!"

In the port city of Pusan, in the southern tip of the Korean peninsula, the Reverend Young Hie Paik became a martyr at the age of eighty. This was his life-long hope, and it was for this very sacrifice that he prepared his entire life.
The martyr, Young Hie Paik, was born in his parent"s home at Gyungnam, Korea in 1910. He received the gospel light at the age of twenty-seven(1936) and by the time he was twenty-nine years old, he was a deacon ministering to his first church and by the time thirty-five, four churches simultaneously without compensation.
Korea, in the earlier years of his life, was engulfed in political turmoil exacerbated by the imbroglio of the Japanese occupation (1910-1945) and the Korean War (1950-1953).
During the Japanese occupation the issue of Shinto Rites, bowing before the Japanese god, pushed its way into the foreground of Christianity. Succumbing to pressure from the Japanese ruling government, many Christians at the time participated in these rites. In a time of great fear, where submissiveness to Japanese regulations meant life and unsubmissiveness meant death, Reverend Paik went against the ruling authority refusing to participate in the Rites. In a time when ministers gathered at the beach, baptizing their church members in the name of the Japanese god, Reverend Paik ardently and vocally opposed the Japanese authority.

"Place your god in my hands! I will burn it in front of you!" I said... I fought with the Japanese captain nearly everyday. They would come to my home everyday and pushed me to bow to the Shinto Shrines. Because God protected me, I did not participate in the Shinto Rites. Because they were so busy with me, they did not have time to bother with any of my church members...

Knowing that Christians are difficult to indoctrinate into the communist ideology, the Korean War proved to be another vehement testing ground for believers. Answering the simple question, "Are you a Christian?" could decide not only your fate but the fate of your family and those surrounding you. During these turbulent times, many ministers scattered leaving their churches unattended, often denying the existence of God.

Carrying the Bible around during the Korean War was like running into a fire with a handful of explosives.

The North Korean government passed a sentence of death, placing Reverend Paik on their most wanted list Each morning, one of his deacons used to say to him, "You will die today. There is no way to avoid it today." Each night fell and each day broke, but the the Reverend Paik remained alive, preaching the word of God. Living life lingering around the death line, Reverend Paik gained a powerful faith in the sovereignty of God, which eventually helped him to conquer many years of Christian solitude.
Reverend Paik came to Seo Boo church in 1952, a church with little over forty adults and seventy children. His ministry can be called nothing but a miracle for he established a church with an adult congregation numbering over five thousand and a Sunday School with a weekly attendance numbering over eight thousand children.
Many of the Sunday school teachers that he raised went on to become ministers who established over one hundred and twenty branch churches which today constitute the Church of the Presbyterian Korean General Synod. His bi-yearly camp meetings at Taegu and Geo Chang drew over twenty thousand people. In 1976 he began the Minister"s Training School where future ministers learned about the General Synod"s doctrine and creed among other standard seminary courses.

Reverend Paik"s life can be seen as one long progression toward martyrdom. One underlying theme runs throughout his entire life: the pouring of his possession, body, and life for God. In order to overcome his internal struggle against the devil, sin, and death, Reverend Paik led a diligent life of prayer and Bible study.
Reverend Paik was always critical of the enemies of God. There were those times when he could have changed some words or left names out, but he felt for the glory of God and for the livelihood of the congregation"s faith, lucidity was better than obscurity. There were many events that foreshadowed his martyrdom in 1989: several attempts on his life were made. But this did not daunt the Reverend Paik who continued to lay down his life for his brethren.

I am preaching to you like this today, but the time will come when wicked men will drag me off the pulpit and kill me for saying this... Do not take the words I am saying for granted. I have not hesitated in saying anything to you. My blood is innocent in regard to you. I have not concealed anything from you, but have laid down my life to tell you the truth.

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