Christianity in North Korea
Although Article 66 of the DPRK’s constitution guarantees the freedom of religion as a fundamental right, North Korea is often considered an atheist state, with the United Nations secretary-general stating that “the right to freedom of thought, conscience, and religion ... continues to be denied, with no alternative belief systems tolerated by the authorities.” The North Korean government reportedly continues to execute, torture, arrest and physically abuse citizens for their involvement in religious activities. In particular, a 2021 report published by an NGO, Korea Future, stated that the authorities frequently arrested or otherwise punished family members of Christians. According to an American NGO, Open Doors USA (“ODUSA”), an estimated 50,000 to 70,000 North Korean Christians were arbitrarily detained by the state. ODUSA described Christian persecutions in the North as being “violent and intense” and that “life for Christians ... is a constant cauldron of pressure; capture or death is only a mistake away.”
A BRIEF HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY IN KOREA
Christianity was first introduced to Korea during the Japanese invasion, also known as the Imjin War, from 1592 to 1598. It was reported that a Catholic priest by the name of Gregorio de Cespedes was dispatched by the Japanese military to be stationed in Korea for their soldiers. More Christians were later sent to Korea during the 17th century. However, due to limited exposure to Koreans (except for orphans and prisoners of war), the teachings of Christianity had only reached Korea when diplomatic envoys were regularly sent to China during the Joseon Dynasty. In 1603, a Korean diplomat, Yi Gwang-jeong, encountered Christianity while visiting China and returned home with several books by Matteo Ricci, an Italian Jesuit missionary. Yi later translated the books and began to spread the word in his country. Catholic missionaries also began introducing Christianity to Korea in 1784 and the first Protestant missionaries arrived in Korea in 1885. The religion flourished as a result, with historian Andrei Lankov commenting that Pyongyang was “the Jerusalem of the East” due to the large base of Christian followers in the North.
It may come as a surprise to many that Pyongyang was a Christian missionary center for all of northeast Asia a century ago. Before the Korean War, which began on 25 June 1950, there were approximately 3,000 churches in North Korea. Around one-sixth of the entire population of Pyongyang, a city of about 300,000 people, were Christians. In fact, the DPRK’s founder, Kim Il-sung, was born and raised in strong Christian surroundings. His parents were both devout Christians (his mother, Kang Pan-sok, was a Presbyterian named after Saint Peter, as Pan-sok means "rock”), while Kim Il-sung himself served as a Sunday school teacher as well as a church organist, having received assistance and support from many Christians throughout his life. His first wife, also the mother of North Korea’s former leader, Kim Jong-il, was also a Christian.
SUPPRESSION OF CHRISTIANS IN NORTH KOREA
Between 1945 and 1953, which was the period when the Communist government took over the North and shut down most of the churches, and when Soviet forces first occupied the northern part of the Korean Peninsula, Christians who were considered as “bad elements” by the authorities fled to the South. An estimated 5 million Christians from the North headed down south at the beginning of the Korean War in 1950. As summarized by Donald N. Clark in his book “Culture and Customs of Korea,” “When the United States and the Soviet Union divided Korea into occupation zones in 1945, North Korea was the part with the most Christians. These, however, were regarded with suspicion by the new Communist regime. The Christians were organized, and they did not always obey the new government. Communist youth organizations attacked Christian meetings and Christians organized to fight back. North Korea dealt with its troublesome Christians by creating a state church – a Christian League that it decreed would be the new owner of all church property, all schools, and to which all Christians must belong or face accusations of disloyalty.”
The Christian League of North Korea united all Christians in the North into one denomination. Christians were since prohibited from missionary work and practicing forms of worship not approved by the league. Christians who did not reach the South in time before the border closed remained in North Korea, where they had to keep quiet about their religion or go into hiding, or otherwise face persecution by the authorities. According to State Department reports, 1,500 churches in North Korea were destroyed in the early decades under the communist ruling.
WHY DO CHURCHES STILL EXIST IN NORTH KOREA?
Despite the reported systematic persecution of Christians in North Korea, there remains a small number of officially registered churches in Pyongyang, though visitors reported that they operated strictly under the state’s control and functioned as a showpiece for foreigners. The presence of a Christian community in North Korea remains an important bridge for the country to establish links with Christians outside the hermit kingdom, and especially in South Korea. It is said that this connection was considered particularly useful for the North to promote the regime’s political aims, including the reunification of the peninsula, in the late 1980s.
For instance, Bongsu Church was founded in Pyongyang in 1988, and was labeled as a “fraud” and condemned for being a “false propagation of freedom of religion” by Rev. Suh Kyung-suk of the Christian Council of Korea. Rev. Suh urged South Korean Christians to stop meeting fake pastors and believers in North Korea, and even wrote on his personal blog that “I am determined to never visit North Korea again, and denounce Bongsu Church, which I visited six times. Let’s abandon the hope that (the government of) North Korea will one day give its people freedom of religion if we continue our good relations with them.” Similarly, the Catholic Changchung Cathedral in Pyongyang, also known as the “silent church,” has in fact no ties with the Vatican and no residing priest on its premises.
Although North Korea’s state-run Korean Catholic Association claimed that it had about 3,000 registered Catholics in 2014, the United Nations suggested the number was closer to 800. Moreover, according to Lankov, “Even if some members are true believers, they are selected by the government. The police authorities, the secret police, is checking your background.” This could be reflected by the arrest and detention of an American missionary, Kenneth Bae, who was accused of planning to bring down the government through religious activities and sentenced to 15 years of hard labor.
CROSSING BORDERS AND THE NORTH KOREAN CHURCH
Throughout Crossing Borders history, we have heard rumors of a church that existed in North Korea and we continued to encourage our supporters to pray for the church. North Koreans we met in China said that they longed to bring the gospel back to their homeland. We have encountered only one North Korean who claimed to have come to believe in their homeland. She was not connected to the underground church but rather, she came to faith through a relationship they had with a business associate. They worshiped on their own by listening to sermons smuggled in via thumb drive.
In the early years of Crossing Borders, we were a part of an initiative that sent Bibles into North Korea. They were smuggled in through instant ramen packages, a small Bible was inserted in a slot cut out of the ramen noodles. Mike Kim wrote in his book, “Escaping North Korea: Defiance and Hope in the World’s Most Repressive Country,” that he met a refugee who worked with someone that was caught in North Korea with a Bible.
“Someone saw the Bible and reported it.The man and his whole family, including kids, were sent to a prison camp.That was the first and only time I ever heard of a Bible in North Korea,” the refugee said.
The penalty for owning a Bible is time in North Korea’s brutal prison camps. One refugee told Mike Kim of his time in a prison camp where he was among a group of 160 Christians caught for their beliefs. They executed their pastor in front of the group with a sign that read, “This man believed in Jesus. This is what will happen to all those who believe in Jesus.”
HOW CHRISTIAN COMMUNITIES SURVIVE IN MODERN DAY NORTH KOREA
There is no exact figure as to the number of Christians in North Korea due to the country’s inaccessibility. However, a UK faith-based NGO, Open Doors, estimated there to be around 400,000 Christians in the country, which is around 1.5 percent of the entire 26 million population. Open Doors reported that many of these believers are held in labor camps and prisons for their faith. Defectors have reported that a labor camp situated in the northern part of the country, called “Prison No. 15,” is home to around 6,000 Christians who have little hope of release and are considered insane, while their families are “identified for extermination for three successive generations.”
Although the government took a softer stance on Christianity in the early 1990s due to the significant contribution in humanitarian aid distributed through Christian groups, most Christian groups remain underground to avoid persecution. Underground Christian families often gather under their blankets at home so they would not be seen or heard, and whisper prayers that they have memorized. A Christian defector told the Washington Post that “My mother taught me the Ten Commandments, and we memorized hymns. Of course we could never keep a Bible in the house. The Communist Party would regularly raid the house and go through all the belongings, looking for foreign books ... If they found a Bible, you could be executed. My mother always told me I could not show my belief in God. I must keep it inside me.”
Another common way to worship in North Korea would be to gather for prayer and Bible study. However, prayer meetings, even if conducted in secrecy, carry huge risks as the authorities actively arrest believers on charges of believing in God. In April 2023, a group of Christians who met weekly at a farmhouse in Tongam village in South Pyongan province were tipped off by an informant and arrested by the police at their Sunday worship service. It is worth noting that this occurred in Tongam, a village with a rich history with Christianity, dating back to when it served as the site of a large church building that stood even after the Japanese invasion of Korea in 1905 and made Shinto the state religion.
ARE THE KIMS NORTH KOREA’S OWN GODS?
Suzanne Scholte, the former chair of the North Korea Freedom Coalition, told The Christian Post that “Because the DPRK regime was set up so that North Koreans are raised to worship the Kims as their gods, there is nothing the regime fears more than the spread of Christianity ... The knowledge of the one true God is the greatest threat to the regime.” Scholte summed up that North Korea’s animosity toward Christianity came as a result of the fact that former supreme leader, Kim Il-sung, was raised a Christian and saw the power of the Christian faith in standing up to the Japanese occupation.
As commented by Son Jung-hun, a human rights activist, “Kim Jong Il is above the country’s law ... and in North Korea what he instructs is like Jesus Christ’s words in the Bible.” In an article published in The Guardian, Ed Pilkington described that, for many North Koreans Christians, the only belief system to which they were exposed as a child was “reverence, mixed with fear, for the Great Leader.” Pilkington narrated the story of Joseph Kim, a North Korean Christian defector, who was very young when he was taught in kindergarten about the magical powers of Kim Il-sung, the then supreme leader of the DPRK. Kim learned that the dictator was the smartest man in the world and that he was able to fly around the countryside keeping watch over all his children. Author Barbara Demick also recounted a similar story of a defector who recalled the daily recitations of “Thank you, Father Kim Il Sung” required of children, and who, after studying with missionaries, realized the extent to which “Kim Il Sung just replaced God’s name with his own.” As a result, the cult of North Korea’s leader leaves no room for Christianity.
