[Obituary] Leading light of S. Korea’s democratization movement passes away

Posted on : 2016-08-19 17:52 KST Modified on : 2019-10-19 20:29 KST
Rev. Park Hyeong-gyu was put in prison six times in his fight against dictatorship, and for justice and peace
Rev. Park Hyeong-gyu
Rev. Park Hyeong-gyu

Rev. Park Hyeong-gyu, one of the leading lights of South Korea’s democratization movement, passed away at his home at 5:30 pm on Aug. 18 after a long illness. Park was famed for practicing what he preached by resisting the dictatorship of former president Park Chung-hee. Park was 93 years old.

Park had been much like any other pastor until his life was transformed by the April 19 Revolution in 1960.

Park, in his thirties at the time, was coming back from officiating a wedding in the Gungjeong neighborhood of Seoul, near the Blue House, when he was shocked to hear gunshots and see young people bleeding. Watching young people being carried away on stretchers, he said, reminded him of Jesus bleeding on the cross.

Thus it was that Park resolved to “let the church be the church,” in the words of the world-renowned theologian Karl Barth, and he spent the rest of his life actively seeking to put his faith into practice. During the struggle to bring down the dictatorship and establish democracy, Park was put in prison six times.

Rev. Park Hyeong-gyu
Rev. Park Hyeong-gyu

Park was born in the city of Masan in South Gyeongsang Province. After graduating with a degree in philosophy from Pusan National University, he traveled to Japan with big dreams and graduated from Tokyo Union Theological Seminary in 1959. He completed his coursework at Union Theological Seminary in the US in 1963.

After returning to South Korea, he handled pastoral duties at Gongdeok Church. Later, he served as pastor at Seoul Cheil of the Presbyterian Church in the Republic of Korea (PROK) from 1971 until 1992, when he retired. But even after this, he continued to practice what he preached by serving as the chairman of the Korea Democracy Foundation and of the Peace Foundation.

After participating in a campaign against negotiations for normalizing diplomatic relations between South Korea and Japan in 1964, Park launched the church renewal movement. As the general manager of the Korea Inter-Varsity Christian Fellowship, Park also tried to bring innovation by changing the organization’s slogan and goal from “evangelizing Korea” to “a Korean version of Christianity.”

The issue of the urban poor also prompted him to move beyond the mission of the church to the mission of God. This meant focusing less on the salvation of the individual and more on the salvation of the entire world as God’s creation, including its political, social and economic aspects.

When Park was chairman of the human rights committee of the National Council of Churches in Korea, he oversaw the publication of Human Rights News, leading the church to take on a journalistic role.

The harshest trial that Park faced was the persecution of the Seoul Cheil of the PROK, where Park became pastor in 1972.

After services at the church were shut down in 1983, Park was forced to hold services in the streets for six long years. On top of 60 hours in detention, Park received death threats and was assaulted in broad daylight.

Nevertheless, Park and his congregation kept holding their outdoor services. They would gather near the Cheil Church in the Ojang Neighborhood of Seoul and head toward the central police department to hold their service, an event they called “The March of the Cross for Justice and Peace.”

That square would become “the biggest church in the world,” a place where people encouraged each other to endure the hardships of the time and a home for the democratization movement.

After an Easter service at the open air concert hall on Namsan in Apr. 1973 at which Park criticized the Park Chung-hee dictatorship (1961-79), he was sentenced to two years in prison for having plotted a rebellion. In April of the following year, he was convicted of participating in a similar plot in connection with the National Democratic Young Student Alliance and given a 15-year prison sentence.

In 1975, Park was also sentenced to 10 months in prison on charges of embezzling missionary funds, charges that had been concocted by the Seoul metropolitan police. The following year, the dictatorial regime locked Park up again and hatched an elaborate scheme to eliminate him by passing him off as a Communist spy in the Christian church, but this scheme was foiled.

Two years later, Park was sentenced to five years in prison in connection with a demonstration in Jeonju by the youth council of the Presbyterian church, but he was released on July 17, 1979, after receiving a special pardon for Constitution Day. During his lifetime, Park often said that it was only natural for members of the clergy to go to prison during an unjust age.

Park’s visitation is taking place at Seoul National University Hospital. He will be interred on Aug. 22.

By Lee Kil-woo, senior staff writer

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