News

North Korea: “I’m a Child of God and I’m Not Scared to Die” — Christians Endure Intense Persecution

February 1, 2019

“The U.S. State Department has included North Korea on its list of countries violating religious freedom every year since 2001.” Christians in North Korea are called upon to have the faith and perseverance of the saints and martyrs. There is at least one Orthodox parish in North Korea, the Church of the Life-Giving Trinity in Pyongyang, but its present situation is unclear. Please continue to beseech Almighty God for peace and security for the Orthodox Christians and all Christians of North Korea.

“‘I’m a Child of God and I’m Not Scared to Die’: How These North Korean Christians Survived Intense Persecution,” Associated Press, February 1, 2019:

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) – One North Korean defector in Seoul describes her family back home quietly singing Christian hymns every Sunday while someone stood watch for informers. A second cowered under a blanket or in the toilet when praying in the North. Yet another recalls seeing a fellow prison inmate who’d been severely beaten for refusing to repudiate her religion.

These accounts from interviews with The Associated Press provide a small window into how underground Christians in North Korea struggle to maintain their faith amid persistent crackdowns.

The North’s treatment of Christians could become a bigger issue if North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s expected second summit with U.S. President Donald Trump produces significant progress, and if Pope Francis follows through on his expressed willingness to take up Kim’s invitation to visit North Korea.

Most of North Korea’s underground Christians do not engage in the extremely dangerous work of proselytizing, according to defectors and outside experts. Instead, they largely keep their beliefs to themselves or within their immediate families. But even those who stay deep underground face danger, defectors say.

North Korea has previously arrested South Korean and American missionaries for allegedly attempting to build underground church networks or overthrow its government. Only a small number of North Korean believers risk trying to win converts, defectors say.

One woman interviewed said she converted about 10 relatives and neighbors and held secret services before defecting to the South.

“I wanted to build my church and sing out as loud as I could,” said the woman, who is now a pastor in Seoul. She insisted on only being identified with her initials, H.Y., because of serious worries about the safety of her converts and family in the North.

The pastor and others spoke with AP because they wanted to highlight the persecution they feel Christians face in North Korea. Although the comments cannot be independently confirmed, they generally match the previous claims of other defectors.

Kim Yun Tae, head of the Unification Strategy Institution, a private think tank in Seoul, said he’s heard similar testimonies about religious crackdowns and underground Christians during interviews with more than 1,000 defectors from North Korea over the past 20 years.

North Korea has five government-sanctioned churches in its capital, Pyongyang, but experts say they are fakes aimed at covering up the nation’s religious abuse and winning outside aid. North Korea had a flourishing population of Christians before the 1950-53 Korean War, but it has withered amid successive clampdowns against a faith the government sees as a U.S.-led Western threat.

“From an outside perspective, there is absolutely no religious freedom in North Korea,” said Kim Yun Tae, who isn’t religious.

The U.S. State Department has included North Korea on its list of countries violating religious freedom every year since 2001. North Korea has previously bristled at U.S. criticism of its religious record, calling it proof of hostility toward its leadership….

Another defector in Seoul, Kwak Jeong-ae, 65, said a fellow inmate in North Korea told guards about her own religious beliefs and insisted on using her baptized name, rather than her original Korean name, during questioning in 2004.

“She persisted in saying, ‘My name is Hyun Sarah; it’s the name that God and my church have given to me,'” Kwak said. “She told (the interrogators), ‘I’m a child of God and I’m not scared to die. So if you want to kill me, go ahead and kill me.'”

Kwak said Hyun told her about what she did during the interrogations, and Hyun’s actions were confirmed to Kwak by another inmate who was interrogated alongside her. Kwak said she later saw Hyun, then 23, coming back from an interrogation room with severe bruises on her forehead and bleeding from her nose. Days later, guards took Hyun away for good….