The Korean Church dates its beginnings to 1777. At that time the 'Hermit Kingdom' of Korea was a vassal state of China and closed to the outside world. Korean Buddhist elite scholars had long been studying Chinese-language tracts produced by the Jesuits in China. But in 1777 a principal member of one study group travelled to China, met with Catholic priests, converted to Christianity, was baptised and returned to evangelise his fellow scholars.

The Church grew despite opposition at every level. In 1791 two converts were arrested and executed for refusing to perform ancestral rites. By the end of the 18th Century there were some 10,000 Catholics in Korea. Regular episodes of severe persecution with mass executions were a feature of the 19th Century. The situation improved somewhat after 1880 when Korea reluctantly began to open up and establish links to the outside world. The end of isolation saw the beginning of Protestant missions amongst a people who were hungry for education and Western engagement and remarkably open to the gospel.

On the night of 14 January 1907, a small group of believers were studying the Bible in Changdaehyun Church, Pyongyang (capital of present-day North Korea), when the Holy Spirit came on them in a particularly powerful way bringing deep conviction of sin. Through the night they confessed their sins with tears and deep repentance. The next day the spiritual fervour spread and triggered a great awakening that transformed the spiritual landscape. The revival resulted in Pyongyang becoming known as 'The Jerusalem of the East'.

During the Japanese occupation from 1910 to 1945 they forcefully imposed Shintoism, so that Christianity became associated with resistance and Korean nationalism. The suffering of that era led to the largely elite Korean Church becoming a popular grass roots movement.

World War Two, which liberated Korea from the Japanese, and then the Korean War left the Korean Peninsula divided between Russian-backed Communists in the north and the US-allied free south. Some 2300 Christian congregations with around 300,000 members are believed to have disappeared from North Korea after the border closed in 1953. Since then, North Korea's repression, mismanagement, backwardness and religious persecution has persistently been amongst the world's worst. The regime of Kim Jong-il maintains a gulag of some 200 concentration labour camps where 'criminals' and their families to three generations are starved, beaten and worked to death. Up to 70,000 Christians are believed to be amongst the political prisoners. North Korean refugees have testified to the United States International Commission on Religious Freedom that the only time they ever heard of Christianity whilst living in North Korea was when they were forced to witness a public execution of Christian believers.

Meanwhile South Korea developed a culture of liberal democracy. It is now not only one of the world's most successful economies but home to some of the world's largest, most prayerful, and aid and mission-focused churches. Many South Korean Christians have taken up residence in China, close to the North Korean border so they can rescue, help and witness to the refugees who succeed in escaping into China. Chinese policy at present is to arrest North Korean refugees and return them to North Korea where they are arrested, charged, imprisoned and severely punished for their crime of escaping. There are at least 70,000 North Korean refugees presently hiding in or transiting through China. Around 70 percent of those refugees have become Christians in exile.

Due to decades of intense isolation, repression, famine, impoverishment and brainwashing, North Korea has no civil society and no institutions of government or opposition. The state is ruled by and for the totalitarian dictator and 'god' Kim Jong-il who demands to be worshipped and who is surrounded and protected by a really enormous, well paid and well fed (and therefore loyal) military machine.

This year, 2007, the 100th anniversary of the Pyongyang revival, we lift up to the Lord the state of North Korea and the Church in North Korea. We pray for openings for the gospel, for the refugees and those who serve them, for a change in Chinese policy and for a fresh outpouring of the Holy Spirit. May hymns once again ring from 'The Jerusalem of the East' and may she soon be called 'A City Not Forsaken' (Isaiah 62:12).

'Lift up your heads, O you gates; be lifted up, you ancient doors, that the King of glory may come in.' (Psalm 24:7 NIV)

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For more information on the situation in North Korea see this PDF link with eye-witness accounts from North Korea, produced by the US Commission on International Religious Freedom.
(NOTE: this is a large file containing 133 pages.)