#and honestly i think the christian communities and church usage are played up for propaganda to the outside

[leroibobo]

jangchung cathedral in pyongyang, north korea. this church is one of three built in pyongyang in the late 1980s to showcase freedom of religion in the country. full services are offered only to those with a catholic family background.

as in the south, north korean christians are either protestant or roman catholic, a result of 18th-20th century european missionary work in the peninsula. pyongyang once housed a large christian population and was known as "korean jerusalem". however, all the old churches in the country were destroyed or appropriated by japanese/american carpet bombing campaigns during world war ii/the korean war respectively, and as the new atheist government took hold of the region afterwards.

rather than rome, this cathedral is under the jurisdiction of the korean catholic association, a governmental organization and catholic counterpart to the protestant korean christian administration. this means that it has no resident bishops or priests; masses are offered only by foreign clergy. the building also houses a noodle factory which is financially supported by the roman catholic archdiocese of seoul and catholic korean-americans.

#north korea #architecture #interior #worship #christian #worship in north korea #my posts #there's a lot of debate on what extent stuff like this are staged/propaganda #and honestly i think the christian communities and church usage are played up for propaganda to the outside #and that there's legit worshippers who belong to families w christian bgs that are allowed to go #(all the functioning churches in n korea are in pyongyang for a reason) #the govt does put non-pyongyanger christians in labor camps. ones in pyongyang are most likely seen as loyal enough to worship #iirc in the eastern bloc they were a little more lenient but only bc orthodoxy was seen as not tied to the ''west''. (not that they were #tolerant of religion.) for example in romania they tried to totally dissolve the greek catholic church bc of association to the vatican #not really the case in places like korea where christianity came from european (and then mostly latin/protestant) missionaries #so ultimately not anything that's never been done by any other government before