Biography
Kim Ik-du was a Korean Presbyterian minister who lived through the most difficult years of the Korean church. He was born in 1874, in the north of Korea, in a time when the country was opening to the world and Christianity was taking root. He grew up in a land that was soon to be under Japanese rule. As a young man, he came into contact with the missionaries and the early Korean believers. He became a Christian and was drawn to the ministry. He studied at the Presbyterian seminary in Pyongyang and was ordained as a pastor.
He served as a pastor in a number of churches in the region of Pyongan. These were the churches which had seen the great revival of 1907. He was a preacher of the Word and a man of prayer. He shared in the practice of dawn prayer, which had become the heart of Korean church life. His ministry fell in the years of the Japanese occupation, from 1910 to 1945, when the colonial government pressed the churches to take part in Shinto worship. Many pastors yielded, and many others resisted. He was among those who refused to bow at the shrines. He suffered for his stand. He was arrested and imprisoned by the Japanese police for a time, and he endured harsh treatment.
After the liberation of Korea in 1945, he was in the north, which came under Communist rule. The new regime was hostile to the church, and many pastors fled to the south or were arrested. He stayed with his flock for a time. When the Korean War broke out in June 1950, he was in a dangerous position. As the northern army advanced, Christian leaders were hunted. He was captured, and he did not survive. It is believed that he was killed in 1950, along with other pastors, by the Communist forces. The exact circumstances of his death are not clear.
His life stands for many whose names are not widely known. The Korean church grew through the faith of pastors who faced prison and death under the Japanese and the Communists. The sacrifice of men like Kim Ik-du is a part of the foundation on which that church stands.