Posted on 04/10/2018 12:10:56 PM PDT by GoldenState_Rose
By 1945, Pyongyang was known as the Jerusalem of East Asia, where 50,000 Catholics lived in peace and Catholic missionaries were overseeing a wave of conversions.
The heartbreaking story of religious persecution in North Korea began during the Soviet occupation from 1945-1948 and continued with the new independent state in 1953.
Today, there is only one state-controlled Catholic church in Pyongyang and there are no priests or members of a religious institute recognized by the Holy See. Francis Lee, a translator for the Catholic Bishops Conference of Korea, estimates that there are about 800-3,000 official Catholics left in North Korea.
Sadly, Open Doors estimates that today some 50,000-70,000 Christians may be residing in the countrys gulags.
During the Korean War, the North Korean army made Christian POWs walk to a prison camp in the frigid cold in what was called the March of Death. Many elderly priests and ill nuns were unable to survive the march due to the cold or hunger, and those who fell behind were executed.
Bishop Patrick James Byrne, an emissary for the Pope was one of those sacrificed. Instead of being evacuated by plane before Seoul fell, Bishop Byrne stayed behind and was arrested by the Communist Party and sentenced to death.
It is said that his last words as he died of pneumonia were those of thanks to the Lord for the grace of dying as a martyr.
Prior to his missions to Korea, Bishop Byrne supervised construction projects at Maryknoll and in Scranton, Pennsylvania and then served as the rector of both seminaries.
Now, with the current climate between the United States and North Korea heating up, the world may finally be witnessing the breaking point of the Communist regime.
(Excerpt) Read more at catholicvote.org ...
Has the pope even thought of this aspect?
Marxism is Satanism rebranded.
From the Russian Orthodox Church's website...
12 February 2016
Rev. Dr Olav Fykse Tveit, general secretary of the World Council of Churches (WCC), has issued a statement on behalf of the Council hailing the historic meeting of Pope Francis, pontiff of the Roman Catholic Church, and Patriarch Kirill, primate of the Russian Orthodox Church.
The two leaders met on 12 February in Havana, Cuba.
The Russian Orthodox Church is the largest member church in the WCC..."
_______________________________________________________
Catch that? The Russian Orthodox Church is the largest member of the (hard left) World Council of Churches!
That is all you need to know to understand that it is a sham operation. Reverend Wrights fake church United Church of Christ (UCC) is also a member. In fact, his (communist) Black Liberation Theology was concocted by the KGB.
The Russians must laugh their butts off at how easily westerners can be tricked and deceived.
The Russian Orthodox Church is a member of the (communist) World Council of Churches:
https://www.oikoumene.org/en/member-churches/russian-orthodox-church
____________________________________
From David Horowitz's FrontPageMag.com/DiscoverTheNetworks.org:
Profile: WORLD COUNCIL OF CHURCHES (WCC)
[lots more at link...]
http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/groupProfile.asp?grpid=7514
_______________________________________________________
From David Horowitz's FrontPageMag.com/DiscoverTheNetworks.org:
Profile: LIBERATION THEOLOGY
...liberation theologys real creator was the Soviet Unions foreign intelligence and domestic security agency, the KGB.
Patriarch Kirill, who today heads Russian Orthodox Church, secretly worked for the KGB under the code name Mikhailov and spent some 40 years promoting liberation theology.
Ion Mihai Pacepa, the highest-ranking Soviet-bloc official ever to defect to the West, writes: Liberation theology has been generally understood to be a marriage of Marxism and Christianity.
What has not been understood is that it was not the product of Christians who pursued Communism, but of Communists who pursued Christians....
Its genesis was part of a highly classified Party/State Disinformation Program, formally approved in 1960 by KGB chairman Aleksandr Shelepin and Politburo member Aleksei Kirichenko, then the second in the party hierarchy after Nikita Khrushchev.
Adds Pacepa: In 1971, the KGB sent Kirill who had just been elevated to the rank of archimandrite to Geneva as emissary of the Russian Orthodox Church to the World Council of Churches.... Kirill/Mikhailovs main task was to involve the WCC in spreading the new liberation theology throughout Latin America.
In 1975, the KGB was able to infiltrate Kirill into the Central Committee of the WCC a position he held until he was elected patriarch of Russia, in 2009.
Not long after he joined the Central Committee, Kirill reported to the KGB: Now the agenda of the WCC [World Council of Churches] is also our agenda.
http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/viewSubCategory.asp?id=2990
____________________________________________
August, 2006
Its an odd project considering that freedom of religion exists almost exclusively on paper in the closed communist country.
North Korean dictator Kim Jong-Il is supposed to be a communist atheist.
So why has he made promoting the Russia Orthodox Church his latest pet project?
On August 13, the countrys first Orthodox church is to be opened in the capital city of Pyongyang.
Russian Metropolitan Bishop Kyrill, second in command within the Church after the Patriarch, will travel to Pyongyang to christen the new house of worship. ...
North Korea has churches? I thought religion had been eradicated completely, as in Albania under Enver Hoxha, and the philosophy of “Juche” (self-reliance) took its place.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.