The story of Voice of the Martyrs begins in Romania with a Lutheran pastor named Richard Wurmbrand. As an ethnic Jew, Wurmbrand faced persecution under the heavy hand of fascists during World War II. Then, as a Christian leader, he faced persecution at the hands of their Communist successors.

After boldly proclaiming that Christ would never be subservient to the Communist regime, Wurmbrand was captured and imprisoned without trial. Officials had Wurmbrand tortured in the hopes that he would reveal information about the underground church. Wurmbrand, however, refused to co-operate.

Wurmbrand was in prison for more than fourteen years before he was formally ransomed out of Romania for $10,000. Despite his newfound freedom, Wurmbrand never forgot his persecuted brothers and sisters and strongly believed he had been ransomed from prison to serve as a voice for the persecuted church. In 1967 he founded Jesus to the Communist world, the organization which would later become Voice of the Martyrs. Through this organization, he supported the underground church around the world in any way that he could.

Life in the “free world”, however, had its own challenges.

“I suffer in the West [the free world] more than I suffered in a communist jail, because now I see with my own eyes the western civilization dying,” Wurmbrand explained.

Not only did the church in the free world overlook the suffering of its persecuted brothers and sisters, but it did not understand how to suffer in Christ’s name. Wurmbrand found several similarities in the free world to Romania in its honeymoon phase with Communism and felt responsible for preparing the church in the free world for inevitable persecution. He wrote the book Preparing for the Underground Church to this end.

Different Voice of the Martyrs organizations sprung up around the world from the seed that Wurmbrand sowed. Although each of these organizations are autonomous and independent, they work together to achieve a common goal: Supporting the underground church. There is no world headquarters or main office for The Voice of the Martyrs, as each organization is an independent, self-supported entity.

Voice of the Martyrs, in Korea, dates back as early as 1967. A small band of South Koreans worked together with Wurmbrand to smuggle Bibles into North Korea via balloon and to spread God’s word in North Korea through radio.

VOM Korea was officially founded in 2001 by the Reverend Doctors Eric and Hyun Sook Foley. After being called to aid North Korea through a dream given to Pastor Foley, they partnered with North Koreans to support the underground church.

At the time, most North Korean ministry was being conducted by South Korean missionaries and International aid agencies. The Foleys pioneered the idea of an organization that partnered with underground North Korean Christians in which the underground Christians set the agenda and indicated which tools were needed to do the work.

That philosophy has expanded now to China, the Middle East, Eritrea, and more than 50 other countries as VOMK partners with ChinaAid and underground believers around the world to ensure that the voice of the martyrs never falls silent. VOM Korea has as its spiritual foundation the early Korean Christian martyrs, who through word and action taught our ancestors how to take up their cross and follow Christ.