North Korea 70th Annniversary National Day Tour- Church Visit
We visited Bongsu church on a Sunday, but there was no one in the church because the day we visited the church was the National Day, the pastor said they changed the time of the service to an earlier time, so that people can go to the celebrations after the service. (Our tour leader said she has visited before on Sunday and she saw worshippers here before.)
The church was built with the help of South Korea, so we could see LG air conditioner in the church.
There was a Q & A time during our visit. One of the pastors (there were two of them) answered our questions. He said there are about 300 people/week worshipping in the church, and they are mainly elderly. The pastor claimed that they have religious freedom. Young people don’t believe in Christianity as they believe in Juche Ideology. (From wikipedia: Juche is the official state ideology of North Korea, described by the government as “Kim Il-sung’s original, brilliant and revolutionary contribution to national and international thought”. It postulates that “man is the master of his destiny”, that the Korean masses are to act as the “masters of the revolution and construction”). When asked about their denomination, they said their church is a Methodist one and he added that there are a total of 4 churches in Pyongyang (two Protestants, one Catholic, one Orthodox).
