Koreans in The Philippines - Religion

Religion

Korean Christian churches in Metro Manila and other large cities in the Philippines serve as centers of religious and social activity within the Korean community. The earliest Korean church, Manila's Korean Union Church, opened its doors in 1974. The churches are largely Protestant, especially Presbyterian; their style of worship is marked by forceful preaching and the use of amplified guitar and organ accompaniment to song and prayer, often perceived by Filipinos as too noisy. However, some Korean Catholic churches also exist, such as the St. Andrew Kim Dae Gun Parish Church, which grew out of a 1986 commemorative ceremony for the 150th anniversary of the martyrdom of the eponymous saint; as of 2003, the church had roughly 500 members. Young South Korean pastors are attracted to the Philippines because of the difficulty they find in starting their own church in their home country; they thus start mission-focused churches in the Philippines.

Filipinos are often baffled by and even suspicious of the presence of Korean ethnic-specific churches in their country, assuming that they have come in an attempt to evangelise Catholics; however, though the churches sometimes conduct charity outreach work in the local communities, their activities are mainly targeted towards Koreans. The few native members the churches attract tend to be those from lower socioeconomic brackets. Mass weddings conducted by the Unification Church in the 1980s caused particular controversy and had a negative effect on Philippine-South Korean diplomatic relations. The churches are often quite separated from those of the local culture, but highly dependent on the sending churches in South Korea. Relatively wealthy evangelists who continue to maintain a South Korean standard of consumption while living in the Philippines may also inadvertently evoke negative feelings from Filipinos, who expect a Christian pastor to be poor and sacrificing.