The Presbyterian Church of Korea or PCK is a mainline Protestant denomination based in South Korea and currently has the second largest membership of any Presbyterian denomination in the world. It is affiliated with its daughter denomination, the Korean Presbyterian Church in America (KPCA) in the United States, which has adopted the "Korean Presbyterian Church Abroad" as its new name in 2009. The church, while primarily made up of Korean-speakers, welcomes people of all nationalities.
The first Korean Presbyterian minister was Suh Sang-Ryun, who founded a church in Hwanghae province in 1884. Shortly thereafter, several foreign Presbyterian missionaries arrived on the peninsula, including Horace Allen, Horace G. Underwood, and Henry Davies.
Like other Christian groups, the Korean Presbyterians were closely involved in the peaceful March first movement for Korean independence, in 1919.
By 1937, the Presbyterian churches were largely independent of financial from the United States.
In the 1950s, the PCK was cut off from any remaining believers in North Korea, and three schisms occurred. In the first of these, in 1952, the Gosin group split off. In the second in 1953, the "Presbyterian Church of the Republic of Korea" separated from the PCK. In the third, and thus far final, schism, the Hapdong faction separated in 1959.
Famous quotes containing the words presbyterian and/or church:
“He is a Presbyterian first and an artist second, which is just as comfortable as trying to be a Presbyterian first and a chorus girl second.”
—H.L. (Henry Lewis)
“There warn’t anybody at the church, except maybe a hog or two, for there warn’t any lock on the door, and hogs likes a puncheon floor in summertime because it’s cool. If you notice, most folks don’t go to church only when they’ve got to; but a hog is different.”
—Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (1835–1910)