Biography
Lucia Kim Kop-chu
About Lucia Kim Kop-chu
Lucia Kim was born in Seoul in 1769 and lived with a physical disability from childhood. She became a Catholic before the persecution of 1801. Her husband and family did not share her religion, making religious practice difficult. After meeting other Catholics, she left home and lived in their households.
She helped with household tasks and cared for children and sick people. The bishops’ conference account remembers her encouraging others to become Catholics. During imprisonment she cared for ill inmates and shared the little money she had.
Lucia was arrested during the persecution of 1839. She refused both to abandon her faith and to identify other Catholics.
The bishops’ conference account describes severe punishment followed by illness and death in prison in late August or early September 1839.
The encyclopedia instead says that her age and disability spared her physical punishment, and places her death around September. The precise day and the details of her final illness remain uncertain.
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