119 Years of a Remote Korean Church: The Story of Bonghwa Cheokgok Church
Creatrip Team
25 days ago
A small mountain church in Bonghwa, North Gyeongsang Province, with only 29 members including students, has published a book documenting its 119-year history. Titled 'The 119-Year Story of Bonghwa Cheokgok Church' and written by church-history scholar Im Hee-guk, the book traces the church’s founding in 1907 after the Eulsa Treaty by Korean believers like Kim Jong-suk (1874–1956), who returned to his maternal village and, without foreign missionaries, helped establish the church and a local school (Myeongdong Seosuk). Over the decades the church became a local center for youth study groups (myeollyehoe) and nationalist activities; it now holds an annual “National Humiliation Remembrance Day” music concert on August 29. The church’s survival and heritage preservation were led by Kim Jong-suk’s grandson, Kim Young-seong, who returned in 2003, recovered documents and artifacts, and helped secure the church’s designation as a Registered Modern Cultural Property in 2006. The book broadens its focus to include regional church history and American missionary activity in Korea. Unusually, the congregation published the history for general sale—funding the project partly with money originally gathered to build a pastor’s residence—with the hope the book will be widely read rather than shelved.
