Christians from North allowed to visit South
Thursday, April 27, 2000
South China Morning Post
ROGER DEAN DU MARS in Seoul

Returning an Easter gesture, a North Korean Christian group said yesterday it had received approval to visit Seoul this summer, shortly after the inter-Korean summit in mid-June.

Eight South Korean Christians attended services in Pyongyang's two churches on Easter Sunday, marking the first inter-Korean church service.

The North's delegation from the Korean Christian Federation will be the first group of Christians to be allowed to take part in a church service south of the 38th parallel. The service, called a "congress", is scheduled to be held in the Chamshil Olympic Gym.

The organisation in the South, The National Unification Missionary Congress for the Great Jubilee of the year 2000, has promised to send the North equipment and supplies for noodle factories, which are popping up in almost every village as Pyongyang looks for alternative means to feed its people.

Spokesman for South Korea's Christian Congress said the North's Christian Federation would receive other supplies.

"We want to send the Christian Federation parts for greenhouses and some vegetables, which North Korea needs very desperately," he said.

"Our hope is that North Korea can start to grow more food."

South Korean Christian organisations have been steadily sending food, money and supplies to North Korea for 20 years. Most deliveries travel via China.

Pyongyang takes an ambiguous stance on religious activity. In 1992, former president Kim Il-sung formally permitted some expression of religion. Six years later, this sketchy law was defined as granting citizens the right "to build structures for religious use and to hold religious rituals". But publicly Pyongyang condemned religion, insisting that the people of North Korea should only edify Kim Il-sung and his son, the current leader, Kim Jong-il.

Even simple acts of prayer have reportedly resulted in life in prison and executions. A German publication in February claimed that North Korean Christian missionaries were publicly stoned to death and that the Kim Jong-il regime had mass-produced banners vilifying Christianity.

Pyongyang claims that 10,000 Protestants, 4,000 Catholics and 10,000 Buddhists freely practise their faith in either Pyongyang's two churches or some 500 home churches throughout the country.

But the North's religious groups are required to promote propaganda in carefully orchestrated public rallies.

Christian groups have also been exploited as vehicles for aid.

Always nervous about Christian movements, Pyongyang has recently become acutely anxious over a growing number of its people who flee to China for food, find helpful Christian missionaries who convert them, then return to North Korea and secretly spread the gospel, analysts said.

"Pyongyang now sees Christianity as the biggest threat to stability," said a missionary based in China. "North Koreans are taking to religion faster than you can imagine."

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