Yes, there are Christians in North Korea. Somewhere in North Korea right now, a person is worshipping Jesus Christ alone in the dark.
No church building. No Bible — those are banned and their possession can lead to death. No worship music, no pastor, no congregation. Just a believer, kneeling in secret, communing with a God the state has declared does not exist, in a country where being discovered means a labour camp — or worse — not just for themselves but for three generations of their family.
There are an estimated 300,000 Christians in North Korea. They are, by most assessments, the most persecuted believers on the face of the earth.
The Most Dangerous Faith on the Planet
North Korea ranks No. 1 on the Open Doors World Watch List — the annual ranking of countries where Christians face the most severe persecution — and has held that position for more than two decades. Christianity is entirely outlawed. The Kim dynasty, which has ruled with absolute power since the country’s creation in 1948, demands complete loyalty and devotion. There is no room for any higher allegiance — not to God, not to any other authority. The state is, for all practical purposes, the god of North Korea.
Under this system, owning a Bible is grounds for arrest. Praying — if discovered — can result in immediate detention. Sharing the gospel with another person is one of the most dangerous acts a human being can perform in that country. Worship services, if they happen at all, take place in ones or twos — a husband and wife, perhaps, or two trusted friends — in the deepest privacy, with lookouts posted and voices barely above a whisper.
They Memorise What They Cannot Hold
Because physical Bibles are confiscated and destroyed, many North Korean Christians have done something that would have been familiar to the earliest believers hiding from Roman persecution: they memorise Scripture. Entire chapters. Entire books. The Word of God stored not in leather bindings but in the most secure place any government can never reach — the human heart and memory.
Christians in North Korea also pass on faith in extraordinary ways. Some have reported that the only indication a family member was a believer was found after their death — a small cross hidden in their belongings, or a whispered testimony in the final moments of life.
Getting the Gospel In — and the Stories Out
Despite the iron curtain that North Korea maintains around information, the outside world has found ways to reach believers inside. Radio broadcasts from outside the country — particularly from South Korea and China — carry Christian teaching and worship music that can be received on small, hidden radios. Balloons carrying Bibles, USB drives with Christian content, and gospel literature have been sent across the border from South Korea in an ongoing effort by activist and ministry groups.
And stories do emerge — slowly, painfully, usually carried by defectors who risk their lives to cross into China and eventually reach safety. Those stories tell of a church that is not dying but enduring. Not defeated but deepened by suffering into something the comfortable church of the free world finds hard to recognise and harder to replicate: a faith that has been stripped of everything except Jesus Himself.
What Easter Means in a Labour Camp
This Easter Sunday, as Christians in Lagos, London, Los Angeles, and Lagos gather in packed churches to celebrate the resurrection, some of their brothers and sisters in North Korea will be doing the same — silently, invisibly, at extraordinary personal risk.
They will not have flowers, or Easter cantatas, or packed communion tables. They will have only the same thing the earliest Christians had in the catacombs beneath Rome: the unshakeable conviction that Jesus Christ is risen — that death has been defeated — that no government, no labour camp, no threat of three-generation punishment can undo what happened on that first Easter morning.
They are not victims. They are witnesses. And their witness — largely invisible to the world — may be the most powerful testimony to the reality of resurrection faith on earth today.
How to Stand with North Korea’s Christians
- 🙏 Pray — specifically, by name if possible. Open Doors provides prayer guides for North Korea. Visit opendoorsusa.org
- 📻 Support radio and broadcast ministries reaching North Korea — Far East Broadcasting Company (FEBC) and others transmit the gospel daily into the country
- 📢 Advocate — raise awareness with your church, your government representatives, and on social media. These 300,000 believers deserve to be remembered by name, not just as statistics
- 🤝 Support defectors — organisations helping North Korean refugees who escape through China deserve consistent financial support
This Easter, remember the church in the dark. They are part of the same body. And the same resurrection that we celebrate this Sunday is the reason they endure.
