North Korea in the News: Putin Visits a Pyongyang Church
At the end of his recent visit to Pyongyang, Russian president Vladimir Putin visited the Church of the Life-Giving Trinity, a Russian Orthodox Church in the North Korean capital.
Here are five questions arising from the visit.
Why did Putin visit North Korea for the first time in 24 years?
Since starting ‘his special operation’ in Ukraine, Putin’s Russia has been increasingly isolated by the international community. His regime must find allies and finds them in the small circle of states that are able to support him. North Korea shares a small border with Russia, has a high production of weapons, artillery and missiles, and is desperate for technology and cash. Last year, Putin promised to help North Korea with its space program. North Korea has sent thousands of labourers to Russia.
What did Putin do in North Korea?
During his brief visit, the Russian leader was treated to parades and shows. He also signed a mutual defense pact with his North Korean counterpart, Kim Jong-Un. This treaty states that the two nations will aid each other in case of aggression. Just before heading on a plane to Vietnam, Putin visited the Russian Orthodox Church, where he spoke with archbishop Theophanes, who also performed a brief service. The archbishop was trained and ordained in Russia by the Russian Orthodox Church. Putin was also seen lighting a candle.
Why did Putin visit the Russian Orthodox Church?
For a few likely reasons:
- State visits like these are meant to emphasize the strong connections between countries. The Russian Orthodox Church in Pyongyang was constructed after Kim Jong-Un’s father, the late leader Kim Jong-Il, visited a church in Irkutsk in 2002.
- Putin publicly positions himself as a devout Christian and defender of the Russian Orthodox Church. A true Russian is Russian Orthodox, in his view. People from former Soviet Republics – who are usually Muslim – are often discriminated in Russia.
- Putin’s visit may be meant to emphasize the freedom of religion in North Korea, which in reality is non-existent.
If there’s no freedom of religion in North Korea, how could Putin visit a church?
After the Second World War, North Korea became a Soviet satellite state, with communism as its core ideology. Christians were fiercely persecuted in the 1950s, and those who were not arrested, had to keep their faith a secret.
However, North Korea soon became concerned with their international reputation and established the Korean Christian Federation. There are only four official church buildings in North Korea and they are all located in Pyongyang. Besides the Russian Orthodox Church, there’s a Roman Catholic Church as well as two Protestant churches. All these churches are showcase churches, meaning that there are only church services when foreigners request to visit.
The real church consists of between 300–500,000 Christians, who follow Jesus in secret.
What Putin and Kim Jong-Un have in common is that the official state church of their respective nations support their actions and ideology.
What does Putin’s church visit mean for North Korean Christians?
Both Putin and Kim are strongmen who rely heavily on propaganda and oppression. The church visit was a propaganda stunt and will not make any difference for North Korean Christians. The Bible is still a forbidden book, Christians will still be imprisoned, tortured, or killed for their faith.
Satellite Imagery shows what appears to be a concentration camp
North Korea claimed their infamous prison camp has been shut down, but experts are doubtful.
North Korea’s infamous Camp 18, also known as Bukchang Concentration Camp, is known as a ‘kwan-li-so’, a place where political prisoners go for life. North Korea claims the camp has been closed, but researchers of the Committee for Human Rights in North Korea have studied satellite images provided by Google Earth and concluded that the camp is still active. The question is: how many prisoners are here and are any of them Christians?
A study of the images taken in different years shows that large portions of the camp have been demolished while other areas have been expanded with new buildings put up.
According to the analysts, the difficulty comes in determining if the people who work in the camp are prisoners, or if they are regular labourers. It does seem that there are many guard towers, fences, and walled perimeters visible on the satellite images.
Whether Bukchang is still a kwan-li-so (camp for political prisoners) is not clear. According to former detainees, only a small portion of the camp was a ‘revolutionizing zone’. Inmates in this zone are re-educated and – if they survive their stay – released. This means that most prisoners would never see the other side of the camp anymore. The researchers identified a burial site in the mountains.
It was estimated that this camp contained 50,000 prisoners in the past, but the current number is hard to guess.
Christians in the camp?
It’s a well-known fact that North Korean Christians are often sent to these kwan-li-sos. If Camp 18 still functions as a camp for political prisoners, it’s likely that some of them are in this camp, where they have 12-hour workdays, limited food, and are subject to verbal and physical abuse.
Bukchang concentration camp has mines and factories where inmates are put to work under unhygienic and often dangerous circumstances. It occupies an irregularly shaped area that measures a little more than 71 square kilometres, in which space is also several small villages.
Open Doors estimates that every day between 50,000 – 70,000 Christians wake up in concentration camps around North Korea. It remains number one on the World Watch List.
