SEOUL — There is only one official Christian church in Pyongyang.
It is called the “Bongsu Church” and for years, Christians in South Korea have debated whether the so-called minister, elders and congregants were genuine believers or simply stooges assigned and nurtured by the state to propagandize the existence of religious freedom in North Korea for the outside world.
Skepticism notwithstanding, the Bongsu Church in Pyongyang is being rebuilt and expanded thanks to a 4 billion Won [$4.3 million] donation from the South Korean Presbyterian Church Association.
The Bongsu Church has a head minister, an assistant minister, eight elders, five deacons and 14 missionaries for about 300 Sunday worshipers. Reportedly, the congregation has expanded to the point that the 450-seat sanctuary was not large enough to house them all.
A recent defector in Seoul, Kim Jae-Hyuk (not his real name) who joined the Daily NK as a reporter, confirmed that all congregants and officials at Bongsu Church are Party members with privileged status.
“They assign elite royals to the church because it was the very front where they could establish contact with South Korean civilians,” said Kim.
“South Korea people should realize that nothing, not even the words of the Good Book, could come before the instructions of Kim Il-Sung and Kim Jong-Il, and that they are dealing with hard-line communists in that church.”
Kim said he lived in Pyongyang two years during the mid-1990s. While in Pyongyang, he befriended a Foreign Ministry official named Hong.
Hong had plenty of foreign currency at his disposal, Kim said. In 1997, Hong was transferred and seemed to have even more foreign currency at his disposal and was very pleased with his new job.
Later Kim learned that Mr. Hong’s new posting was with the Bongsu Church.
There are reportedly many underground Christian churches in North Korea. After all, Pyongyang was called a “Second Jerusalem” by Western missionaries and Korean believers before the communist regime banned religion in the 1950s. An unknown number of early believers and their descendants have inherited their faith, albeit secretly.
The new Bongsu Church is a 3-story building that seats 1,200. South Korean critics have observed that with that kind of money in North Korea, you could build a hotel in China. Nevertheless, the South Korean brethren are generous to a fault.
According to North Korea’s Christian League, the original Bongsu Church was built just before Pyongyang hosted the 13th World Youth Festival in 1988, organized to counter the Olympic Games in Seoul.
The budget of $250,000 was met with contributions by North Korean domestic believers, overseas churches and Christian organizations, the League said.
South Korean Christians disputed that statement saying there were no true "domestic believers" in North Korea. The church was merely a propaganda ploy to demonstrate the appearance of freedom of religion in North Korea, they said.
