Rev. Keyong Kim; Led Largest Korean Church in U.S.

The Rev. Keyong Kim, retired senior pastor of Los Angeles’ Young Nak Presbyterian Church, the largest Korean-American congregation in the United States, has died in North Korea where he was visiting his wife and children for the first time in 40 years.

Rev. Paul Yang, associate pastor at Young Nak, which recently moved into a new sanctuary near downtown Los Angeles, said Monday that the North Korean government had said in a telegram that his colleague died Sept. 1. He was 69.

Death was attributed to a heart attack, Yang said, adding that the church is pressuring North Korea to send Kim’s body to Los Angeles for burial here.

Kim, who fled from North Korea to South Korea soon after the invasion of the south in 1950, had gone to his home city of Sineuijoo in Pyonganbukdo province to see his wife, Jin Sook, and four children. It was their first reunion since Kim had fled into South Korea and then to Brazil and the United States. He led Presbyterian congregations in all three countries.

The Young Nak church had a congregation of only 100 when Kim came to Los Angeles from Denver in 1974. At his retirement last year the church had a membership of 6,000 and four Sunday services, three conducted in Korean and one in English.

The congregation is among the fastest-growing in the country, Yang said.