Origin from 1907
On 17 September 1907, Presbyterian missions in Korea organized as an independent body with 33 missionaries and 38 Korean presbyters. The church was reconstructed after the Second World War, with its General Assembly re-established in 1947, and grew across the twentieth century into one of the largest Presbyterian bodies anywhere, reporting around four million attendees across 286 branches in South Korea by 2019. Seoul's Myungsung Presbyterian Church, founded in 1980, describes itself as the largest Presbyterian congregation in the world, evidence of the scale this originally small mission body reached within a single century.
Facts
Dates
Start YearSourced to the subject's own account End YearSourced to the subject's own accountThe church founded in 1907 was reconstructed after the Second World War, with its General Assembly re-established in 1947. StatusSourced to the subject's own account Learn More
How the Presbyterian Church of Korea Organized as an Independent Body
This article records tradition as it has been passed down and reported. Its sources are not yet part of the atlas's verified catalogue.
On 17 September 1907, Presbyterian missions working in Korea organized themselves into an independent church body, counting 33 missionaries and 38 Korean presbyters at its founding. The new church was still young when Japanese colonial rule and then the Second World War disrupted it severely; its General Assembly was re-established only in 1947, after Korea's liberation, marking the church's formal reconstruction rather than a fresh beginning.
Reconstruction proved to be the platform for extraordinary growth. Across the following decades the Presbyterian Church of Korea expanded into one of the largest Presbyterian bodies found anywhere in the world, reporting around four million attendees spread across 286 branches within South Korea by 2019. Seoul's Myungsung Presbyterian Church, founded in 1980, grew large enough within the same century to describe itself as the largest Presbyterian congregation anywhere, a single congregation standing as evidence of how far the wider church had come from its 33 founding missionaries.
What the 1907 organization changed for Presbyterianism's spread was the creation of an independent Korean church rather than a mission outpost answering abroad, a body that survived colonial disruption and world war to become, within little more than a century, one of the largest expressions of its tradition on earth.
Cross-Tradition Connections
Associated With
This source names Korean directly: "body with 33 missionaries and 38 Korean presbyters."
Occurred In
Korea, Regions Anchored to the undivided Korea region rather than South Korea, since 1907 predates the 1945 division of the peninsula by thirty-eight years.
Spread Event Of
Presbyterianism's Korean growth, previously entirely missing: this denomination carried zero spread events before this row, despite Korea becoming one of the tradition's largest modern centers.
Sources
Reader Challenges (0 open reader challenges)
No disputes yet. Spotted an error or a better source? Open the first one.
Sign in to dispute this or suggest a correction.
View At A Past Year
Choose a year to see this entry's facts and connections as the atlas records them at that moment: what it held then, what it held instead, and what it had not yet adopted. Choose Present for the current record.