Religion in North Korea

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Traditionally Religion in North Korea primarily consists of Buddhism and Confucianism and to a lesser extent Korean shamanism and syncretic Chondogyo. Since the arrival of Europeans in the 18th century, there is a Christian minority. North Korea is officially an atheist state in which much of the population is nonreligious.^[1][2] North Korea sees organised religious activity as a potential challenge to the leadership.^[3] However the North Korean regime recently as of 2012 tolerates at least Islam but forbids Christianity and Judaism.

Religious demography

The country has an area of approximately 47,000 square miles (120,000 km²) and a population estimated at 22.7 million. The number of religious believers was unknown but was estimated by the government to be 10,000 Protestants, 10,000 Buddhists, and 4,000 Catholics. Estimates by South Korean and international church-related groups were considerably higher. In addition, the Chondogyo Young Friends Party, a government-approved group based on a traditional religious movement, had approximately 40,000 practitioners, according to the Government. According to a South Korean press report, in 2002 the chairman of the Association of North Korean Catholics stated that the Catholic community in the country had no priests but held weekly prayer services at the Changchung Catholic Church in Pyongyang. However, some doubt that all of those attending Mass were Catholic. According to state-controlled media reports, following the death of Pope John Paul II in April 2005, a memorial service was held at this church, and services were also held at family worship places across the country.^{[citation needed]}

In Pyongyang there were reportedly three state-controlled Christian churches: two Protestant churches under lay leadership—the Bongsu and Chilgol churches—and the Changchung Roman Catholic Church. One of the Protestant churches is dedicated to the memory of former leader Kim Il-sung's mother, Kang Pan-sok, who was a Presbyterian deaconess. The number of congregants regularly worshiping at these churches is unknown.

The Presbyterian Church of Korea in the South is partnering with the Christian Association in North Korea to rebuild Bongsu Church. In the fall of 2006, a delegation of 90 Christians from South Korea visited the Bongsu church to celebrate completion of its first phase of renovation, according to press reports. According to religious leaders who travel to the country, there were Protestant pastors at these churches, although it was not known if they were resident or were visitors.

In its July 2002 report to the U.N. Human Rights Committee, the country reported the existence of 500 "family worship centers." The country did not define the term; however, observers stated that "family worship centers" were part of the state-controlled Korean Christian Federation, while "underground churches" were not part of the Federation and were not recognized by the Government. Some NGOs and academics estimate there may be up to several hundred thousand underground Christians in the country. Others question the existence of a large-scale underground church or conclude that no reliable estimate of the number of underground religious believers exists. Individual underground congregations are reportedly very small and confined to private homes. At the same time, some NGOs report that the individual churches are connected to each other through well-established networks. The regime has not allowed outsiders the access necessary to confirm such claims.

There were an estimated 300 Buddhist temples. Most were regarded as cultural relics, but religious activity was permitted in some. A few Buddhist temples and relics have been renovated or restored in recent years under a broad effort aimed at "preserving the Korean nation's cultural heritage." In October 2005 tourists from the Republic of Korea (ROK) and other international tourists were permitted to view the reconstruction of the Shingye or Singyesa (or Holy Valley) Temple, which was destroyed during the Korean War of 1950-53. The reconstruction was funded by the ROK Government and foreign tourists and was expected to be completed in 2007. A South Korean monk, the first to permanently reside in North Korea, has lived at the temple since 2004, but was expected to serve primarily as a guide for visiting tourists rather than caring for Buddhists living in the area.

According to the country's media accounts, renovation of the Ryongthong temple in Kaesong was completed in early 2005. A restoration ceremony was held in October 2005 with participants from North and South Korea and Japan. Foreign diplomats in Pyongyang who visited the site were told that the two monks living there may be joined by more. The Government announced in June 2007 that 500 monks and Buddhist followers were making day-long pilgrimages to the temple strictly for religious purposes. Plans were being made for 2,000 more Buddhist followers from South Korea to make the pilgrimage later in the year. State-controlled press reported on several occasions that Buddhist ceremonies had been carried out in various locations. Official reporting also linked descriptions of such ceremonies with the broader theme of Korean unification.

Holy Trinity Russian Orthodox Church in Pyongyang

The Holy Trinity Russian Orthodox Church opened in Pyongyang on August 13, 2006. The church was reportedly commissioned by Kim Jong-il after he visited an Orthodox cathedral in Russia in 2002. According to a Russian press report, a Russian priest served the cathedral, and a religious leader who traveled to the country confirmed that the church was run by a priest of North Korean origin who had studied in Russia. The purported aim of the church was primarily to provide pastoral care of Russians in the country, but one religious leader with access to the country speculated that the church likely extended care to all Orthodox Koreans as well. As with other religious groups, no reliable data exists on the number of Orthodox believers in the country.

Several foreigners residing in Pyongyang attended Korean-language services at the Christian churches on a regular basis. Some foreigners who had visited the country stated that church services appeared staged and contained political content supportive of the regime, in addition to religious themes. Foreign legislators attending services in Pyongyang in previous years noted that congregations arrived at and departed services as groups on tour buses, and some observed that they did not include any children. Other foreigners noted that they were not permitted to have contact with congregants. Foreign observers had limited ability to ascertain the level of government control over these groups, but it was generally assumed they are monitored closely. According to the 2006 Korea Institute for National Unification (KINU) White Paper, there was no evidence that any of the central religious organizations maintained branches in the provinces.

Overseas faith-based aid organizations have been active in responding to the country's food and humanitarian crises. However, many such organizations report that they are not allowed to proselytize, their contact with nationals is limited and strictly monitored, and they are accompanied by government escorts at all times.

In March 2007 the Barnabas Fund, a Christian charity, helped to open a bakery in Songbong. A South Korean Buddhist group, Join Together Society (JTS), continued to operate a factory in the Rajin-Sonbong Free Trade Zone to produce food for preschool children, which it has done since 1998. Catholics of the Seoul archdiocese continued to operate a noodle factory that they opened in 2001.

The regime has allowed a number of high-profile religious leaders to visit the country. In March 2007 Bishop Lazarus You Heung-sik of Daejeon, president of Caritas Corea, led a 10-member team on a visit to the country in the fifth such visit since September 2006. Following the March trip, Caritas reached an agreement with local officials to continue and expand aid for medical and food-producing facilities, according to press reports. According to the agreement, in 2007 Caritas will provide medical equipment for a hospital, equipment for a seed-potato production facility, and medical support for clinics in a rural area. In May 2007, as part of this project, a Catholic delegation visited 17 pediatric hospitals in Pyongyang and Nampo, among other areas, where they delivered medication for tuberculosis.

In early February 2007 more than 140 members of the Korean Catholic Farmers' Movement from 15 South Korean dioceses met at Mt. Kumgang for the group's annual general assembly meeting, according to a press report. Officials managing Mt. Kumgang's special tourism zone had suggested a project in which the North would provide farmland and workers while the Farmers' Movement would provide technology.

Pastor Rick Warren announced in 2006 that he had been invited by the Government to preach to 15,000 Christians in the country in March 2007. His 2006 planning trip was postponed following the Government's July 4–5 missile launches. In February 2007 he announced that he would pursue a later date for the trip.

Some South Korean religious groups visited the country to promote reunification. In May 2007 a South Korean interfaith delegation visited Pyongyang where it met with the North Korean Government's Council of Religionists to discuss reunification of the peninsula. Following instructions from the Vatican, the Catholic members of the delegation refrained from celebrating mass to avoid giving the Eucharist to North Koreans posing as Catholics.

In April 2006 the Catholic archdiocese of Seoul sent a 61-member delegation to the country, led by Mgr. Thomas Aquinas Choi Chang-hwa, the director of the National Reconciliation Committee. During the visit the Catholic Association of North Korea proposed a joint visit to the Vatican with the Seoul archdiocese, which the association said it hoped would lead to an audience with the Pope. The Vatican has thus far discouraged such a visit, citing ongoing concerns about the juridical and canonical status of the state-founded Catholic Association of North Korea.

In June 2005 Venerable Bubjang, head of the Jogye Order, the largest Buddhist sect in the ROK, and at the time the chair of the national council on religious leaders in that country, traveled to Pyongyang to mark the fifth anniversary of the June 2000 inter-Korean summit.

In October 2005 a delegation from the state-controlled Korean Christian Federation (DPRK) attended an international solidarity meeting in Frankfurt, Germany, sponsored by the Evangelical Church in Germany, according to a government media report.

Several schools for religious education exist in the country. There are 3-year colleges for training Protestant and Buddhist clergy. A religious studies program also was established at Kim Il-sung University in 1989; its graduates usually worked in the foreign trade sector. In 2000 a Protestant seminary was reopened with assistance from foreign missionary groups. Critics, including at least one foreign sponsor, charged that the Government opened the seminary only to facilitate reception of assistance funds from foreign faith-based NGOs. The Chosun Christian Federation, a religious group believed to be controlled by the Government, contributed to the curriculum used by the seminary. In September 2003 construction reportedly was completed of the Pyongyang Theological Academy, a graduate institution that trains pastors affiliated with the Korean Christian Federation. In December 2005 citizens who were expected to staff Pyongyang's Russian Orthodox Cathedral traveled to Vladivostok for training in ordination and other rituals.

Conflict with state ideology

Different official attitudes toward organized religion are reflected in various constitutions. Article 14 of the 1948 constitution noted that "citizens of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea shall have the freedom of religious belief and of conducting religious services." Article 54 of the 1972 constitution, however, stated that "citizens have religious liberty and the freedom to oppose religion" (also translated as "the freedom of antireligious propaganda"). Some observers argued that the change occurred because in 1972 the political authorities no longer needed the support of the much-weakened organized religions. In the 1992 constitution, Article 68 grants freedom of religious belief and guarantees the right to construct buildings for religious use and religious ceremonies. The article also states, however, that "No one may use religion as a means by which to drag in foreign powers or to destroy the state or social order." North Korea has been represented at international religious conferences by state-sponsored religious organizations such as the Korean Buddhists' Federation, the Korean Christian Federation, and the Ch'ondogyo Youth Party.

Despite these official religions, much more attention is paid to the personalities of the deceased "Great Leader" Kim Il-sung and the "Dear Leader", his late son Kim Jong-il. Their portraits are omnipresent in streets, schools, public buildings and all private homes. The ideological statements and scriptures produced by the two leaders are the main basis of education for both children and adults.^{[citation needed]} The story of the Kims' descent is surrounded with mythology. At public events, songs are sung that depict the leaders as saviours of the country as well as of each individual citizen.^{[citation needed]}

This cult of personality, together with the doctrine of juche (self-reliance), has resulted in a deliberate replacement of the religions that flourished in the North before the rise of stalinism. According to human rights observers, this change of regime put an end to free religious activities, as the government only sponsors selected religious groups to create an illusion of religious freedom. [1] It is unlikely that the annulment in 1992 of a constitutional clause which explicitly prohibited religious activities and endorsed the opposition of religion, brought any actual change in the situation.

Earlier restrictions of religion were enforced by the Japanese, who occupied the Korean peninsula from 1910 to 1945. A similar reason for intolerance existed in that time - the Japanese imperial cult.

History of Anti-Religious Campaign

It is very difficult for outside observers to know what has happened to North Korean religious bodies over the past 60 years due to the extreme isolation of the state, and as a result significantly differing interpretations exist among academics about what has happened.

One interpretation has held that all open religious activity in DPRK Korea was persecuted and eradicated after Kim Il Sung took power, only to be revived in the present as part of a political show.^[4] Another interpretation has held that religion survived and has genuinely been revived in the past few decades.^[4]

Kim Il Sung criticized religion in his writings, and North Korean propaganda in literature, movies and other media have presented religion in a negative light. The Juche philosophy often took the place of religion and taught Koreans to see religion as an unscientific delusion. Kim Il Sung's attack on religion was strongly based on the idea that religion had been used as a tool for imperialists in the Korean peninsula. He criticized Christians for collaborating with the UN forces against him during the Korean war, although he praised Christians who supported him.

Accounts from the Korean war speak of harsh persecution of religion by Kim Il Sung in the areas he controlled.^[4] Prior to the war, the Christian community in the Korean peninsula was most heavily concentrated in the North and with the war being fought, many of these Christians fled to the South. Some interpretations have considered that the Christian community in the DPRK were often of a higher socio-economic class than the rest of the population, which may have prompted their departure for fear of persecution for this reason.^[4] The large-scale destruction caused by the massive US air raids and the suffering experienced by North Koreans during the Korean War helped foster a burning hatred of Americans, and Christianity was targeted as being the American religion.^[4] Religion was attacked in the ensuing years as an obstacle to the construction of communism, and many people abandoned their former religions in order to conform to the new reality.^[4] On the basis of accounts from the Korean war as well as information from defectors, an interpretation has held that the DPRK was the only state in the world to have completely eradicated religion by the 1960s.^[4] Buddhism was thought to have been eradicated, under this interpretation and its reappearance later was thought to be a show. ‘The Federation of Korean Christians’ in DPRK Korea (the umbrella organization of Christians in DPRK Korea, which began in 1970), under this interpretation, has been considered a ‘fake’ organization meant to present a favourable image to the outside world. Other interpretations have thought that perhaps they do represent a genuine faith communities in the DPRK that survived the persecutions. An interpretation has considered that these religious communities may have been genuine believers who genuinely adhered to Marxist-Leninism and the leadership of Kim Il Sung, thus ensuring their survival.^[4] This interpretation has been supported by recent evidence gathered that has shown that the DPRK may have tolerated the existence of up to 200 pro-communist Christian congregations during the 1960s, and by the fact that several high ranking people in the DPRK’s government were Christians and they were buried with high honours (Kang Yang Wook was a Presbyterian minister who served as vice president of the DPRK from 1972 to 1982, and Kim Chang Jun was a Methodist minister who served as vice chairman of the Supreme People’s Assembly ^[4]). Differing interpretations often agree on the disappearance of religion under Kim Il Sung in the first few decades of his rule. The DPRK never made an open public policy statement about religion, leading to unresolved speculation among scholars as to what exactly the government’s position was at any point in time.^[4]

Religions

Traditionally, religious life in North Korea was similar to that in South Korea, with which it formed one country until 1948. Most of the country's population consisted of Buddhists and Confucianists, though there were sizeable minorities of Christians and followers of the syncretic Chondogyo (religion of "the Heavenly Way").

Buddhism

Pohyon Temple, Mount Myohyang

Government sources say that currently there are about 13.7 million practicing Buddhists in the DPRK. Buddhism is practiced under the auspices of the official Korean Buddhist Federation. There are some 300 Buddhist temples in the country (e.g. Pohyonsa), but they are viewed as cultural relics from Korea's past rather than places of active worship. Officially, there is a three-year college for training Buddhist clergy. Whether or not these institutes teach traditional Buddhist values has not been verified, however. Religious freedom observers assume the places are used to instruct students to deploy Buddhist teaching merely as a vehicle for the juche ideology.

A limited revival of Buddhism is apparently taking place. This includes the establishment of an academy for Buddhist studies and the publication of a twenty-five-volume translation of the Korean Tripitaka, or Buddhist scriptures, which had been carved on 80,000 wooden blocks and kept at the temple at Myohyang-san in central North Korea. A few Buddhist temples conduct religious services; 62% of North Korea is buddhist.

Chondogyo

Chondogyo ("Heavenly Way") religion grew out of the Tonghak movement during the 19th century. It stresses the divine nature of all people and contains elements found in Buddhism, shamanism, Confucianism, Taoism, and Catholicism. It is the only religion in North Korea which has a corresponding party representing it: the Chondoist Chongu Party.

Shamanism

Shamanism is the oldest religion in Korea still around. Since the arrival of Buddhism and Taoism in Korea, shamanism has been influenced by both.

Christianity

The first Christian missionary (a Catholic) arrived in Korea in 1785. Because the spread of Christianity was prohibited by the government, the number of Roman Catholics did not rise beyond 23,000 by 1863. Korean Christians were persecuted by the government until the country launched its Open Door Policy with Western countries in 1881. By that time, Protestant missionaries began entering Korea during the 1880s. They established schools, universities, hospitals, orphanages, and played a significant role in the modernization of the country. Before 1948 P'yongyang was an important Christian center, one-sixth of its population of about 300,000 residents were Christians.

In the first half of the 20th century, Pyongyang was the centre of Christianity on the Korean peninsula. A spiritual revival took place in 1907 (following the 1903 Wonsan Revival), and by 1945, 13% of the population was Christian. Because of these figures, the city used to be called the Jerusalem of the East. Japanese occupation suppressed Christian activity, but did not wipe it out. The effect of the 1948 communist revolution was more drastic.

Between 1945, when Soviet forces first occupied the northern half of the Korean Peninsula and the end of the Korean War in 1953, many Christians, considered "bad elements" by North Korean authorities, fled to South Korea to escape the socialist regime's antireligious policies. By the late 1980s, it became apparent that North Korea was beginning to use the small number of Christians remaining in the country to establish contacts with Christians in South Korea and the West. Such contacts are considered useful for promoting the regime's political aims, including reunifying the peninsula. In 1988, for the first time since the Korean war, Christian communities were allowed to hold worship services in the open in churches. In this year three new churches, the Protestant Pongsu and Chilgol Churches and the Roman Catholic Changchung Cathedral, were opened in Pyongyang.

Other signs of the regime's changing attitude toward Christianity include holding the International Seminar of Christians of the North and South for the Peace and Reunification of Korea in Switzerland on November 1988, allowing papal representatives to attend the opening of the Changchung Cathedral in that same year, and sending two North Korean novice priests to study in Rome. A Protestant seminary in Pyongyang taught future leaders of the DPRK.^[4] A new association of Roman Catholics was established in June 1988. A North Korean Protestant pastor reported at a 1989 meeting of the National Council of Churches in Washington, D.C., that his country has 10,000 Protestants and 1,000 Catholics who worship in 500 home churches. In March–April 1992, American evangelist Billy Graham visited North Korea to preach at Kim Il Sung University.^{[citation needed]}

The North Korean government considers Christianity (especially Protestantism) to be closely connected with the Western world and heavily suppresses it. The facts and figures concerning Christianity published by the DPRK's government,[2] like those concerning Buddhism [3], are disputed by almost all foreign observers. Although independent verification is impossible, it is assumed^[who?] that there are a large amount of underground Christian groups. Many defectors from North Korea have attested that any form of adherence to the Christian faith, even the mere possessing of a Bible, can be considered a reason for arrest and deportation to a DPRK prison camp.

In Pyongyang there are four church buildings. One of them (the Changchung "Cathedral") is officially said to be Catholic although it has no functioning priest, and the other two are Protestant. Two of these churches were inaugurated in 1988, in the presence of South Korean church officials. A Russian Orthodox church was consecrated in August 2006 (see [4]).^[5] Religious freedom advocates say the buildings were constructed for propaganda purposes only. Foreigners, always guarded by state minders, can attend religious services. Eye-witnesses report that the sermons mix political and religious messages glorifying the DPRK, and that some of the pastors seem to have had no genuine religious training [5]. Christianity in North Korea is officially represented by the Korean Christian Federation, a state-controlled body responsible for contacts with churches and governments abroad.

Freedom of religion

This section requires expansion.

See also

• Human rights in North Korea
• Religion in South Korea
• Religion in Korea

References

 This article incorporates public domain material from websites or documents of the Library of Congress Country Studies. [6]

External links

• Nautilus Institute on religious freedom in DPRK
• Religion in North Korea: Country Studies
• Culture of North Korea - everyculture.com
• Jangchung Catholic Church
• Jongbaek Russian Orthodox Church in Pyongyang
• Video of a Pyongyang Protestant Church
• Video of a Pyongyang Protestant Church
• Video of a Pyongyang Protestant Church
• Video of a Pyongyang Russian Orthodox Church
• Video of a Pyongyang Russian Orthodox Church
• Video of a Pyongyang Roman Catholic Church