Biography
Stephen Min Kuk-ka
About Stephen Min Kuk-ka
Stephen Min Kuk-ka was born in Incheon in 1787. His mother died while he was young, and his father and brothers later became Catholics with him. He married twice, but both wives died, followed by his daughter.
Stephen supported himself by copying religious books. He traveled around Incheon, Suwon and Bupyeong, teaching Catholics, encouraging those who had stopped practicing and undertaking charitable work. He became a catechist.
Bishop Laurence Imbert entrusted him with cultivation of church land near Suwon. The encyclopedia attributes his arrest to an informer’s attempt to take the land; the underlying testimony has not been independently verified.
In prison, Stephen refused to renounce Catholicism and encouraged other prisoners to return to their faith. He was strangled in Seoul on January 30, 1840.
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