| Total population | |
|---|---|
| Total population unknown | |
| Regions with significant populations | |
 South Korea | 71,689 (2024) [1] |
 North Korea | Unknown |
| Languages | |
| Russian, Korean | |
| Religion | |
| Korean Orthodox Church | |
Russians of various ethnicities have lived in Korea since the period of the Korean Empire. They include Koryo-saram, descendants of ethnic Koreans who migrated to the Russian Far East in the late 19th century, and Sakhalin Koreans. [2]
Afanasy Ivanovich Seredin-Sabatin, an architect from a family of Swiss origin, is the earliest attested Russian in Korea. He was invited from Tianjin, China in 1884 by Emperor Gojong. Karl Ivanovich Weber became the Russian Empire's official representative in Seoul [3] in April 1885. [4]
With the establishment of formal relations, more Russians migrated to Korea in the 1890s, mostly via Manchuria. [5] At the time, the community developed around the Russian legation, opened in 1890, and the Russian Orthodox Church of Saint Nicholas, opened in 1903. Both were in Seoul's Jeongdong (located in present-day Jung-gu). Missionaries, diplomats, and businessmen comprised most of the immigrant community at the time. Russia was influential in Korean politics of the era; after the assassination of Empress Myeongseong in 1895, Emperor Gojong took refuge at the Russian legation. Russia's influence in Korea waned after it was defeated in the Russo-Japanese War in 1905. [6]
A new influx of Russian refugees arrived in 1922 as a result of the fall of Vladivostok to the Red Army. [7] In October of the same year, more than 15,000 refugees landed at Wonsan, Gangwondo. Approximately half obtained passage to Shanghai, but those who had not taken valuables with them were forced to stay in Wonsan for the winter. They relied on charitable donations and itinerant work to survive. According to William Arthur Noble, an American missionary in Korea, no more than 20% were literate. They lived either on overcrowded ships, or in barely heated customs warehouses at the docks. [8] In early 1923, the refugees dispersed; they continued on to Harbin, where a significant community of Russians resided, and Latin America. [9]
In February 1925, Japan recognised the Soviet Union, and relinquished the Russian legation building to the new Soviet ambassador. By the late 1920s, approximately one hundred Russians remained in Seoul. Former nobles and officials lived in Jeongdong, while a community of Tatars lived and worked in the markets near Namdaemun and Honmachi (modern-day Myeongdong). However, due to class divisions within the community, these two groups did not often interact. [10] George Yankovsky, the grandson of a Polish noble exiled to Siberia, also maintained a resort in Chongjin which was popular among the Russian communities of East Asia, but virtually unknown to other westerners. When the Soviet Union invaded Korea, most Russians living there were arrested and forcibly repatriated to the Soviet Union. [11]
New Russian communities formed in various cities in South Korea. In Seoul, a "Little Russia" formed in Jung-gu's Gwanghui-dong, near Dongdaemun, in the late 1980s. Roughly 50,000 people from post-Soviet states were estimated to live in the area in 2004, down from 70,000 several years previously due to deportations of illegal immigrants. [2] In Busan, Russians are concentrated in the former "Texas Town" in Jung-gu's Jungang-dong. Approximately 200 live in the city permanently, with several hundred more on short-term visas, along with a large transient population of sailors. [12]
After the Korean War (1950–1953), South Koreans were unfavorably disposed towards Russia because of its alliance with North Korea. Korean Orthodox believers did not want to have any relations with the Russian Orthodox Church. As a result, a schism opened between the Orthodox Community of South Korea and the Orthodox Church. This was resolved on 25 December 1955, after the Christmas Divine Liturgy, the General Assembly of the Orthodox Community of South Korea unanimously requested jurisdiction under the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople, which accepted. The Korean Orthodox Church has since remained a metropolis of the See of Constantinople.
After the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the first economic immigrants from Orthodox countries began to arrive in South Korea; many of them sought refuge and support from the Korean Orthodox Church. Then Metropolitan Sotirios Trambas of Korea created the first nucleus of Slavic-speaking Orthodox faithful. He also held special services for Slavic-speakers on Christmas Day and other Feast days with the old Calendar in order to give them a sense of familiarity and belonging. In 1995, during his historic first official visit to South Korea, Bartholomew, the Ecumenical Patriarch, laid the foundation stone of the chapel of Saint Maximus the Greek.
Since then the Orthodox Metropolis of Korea has undertaken the responsibility and pastoral care of all the Orthodox residing in the country as well as those who are temporary visitors and workers, such as sailors and entrepreneurs. In other words, all Orthodox believers of various nationalities (Koreans, Russians, Greeks, etc.) are "under the Omophorion", or spiritual jurisdiction and care, of the Ecumenical Patriarch. In order to provide proper pastoral care to all Orthodox in Korea, apart from the Cathedral of St. Nicholas in Seoul, there is also the Chapel of St. Maximus the Greek, in which the Services and the Divine Liturgy are celebrated in Slavonic for Slavic-speakers, and occasionally in English for English speakers. Also, in the church of the Annunciation in the Busan, the chapel of Saint George is used for the celebration of the Divine Liturgy in Slavonic for Slavic-speakers who reside in and near Busan. [13]
Since 2022, Russians in Pyongyang have sometimes been served by Orthodox clergy sent from Vladivostok. [14] The Church of the Life-Giving Trinity in Pyongyang was dedicated in 2006. It was built at the order of Kim Jong-il after his visit to the church of Innocent of Irkutsk in Khabarovsk. [15]
The history of Christianity in Ukraine dates back to the earliest centuries of the history of Christianity, to the Apostolic Age, with mission trips along the Black Sea and a legend of Andrew the Apostle even ascending the hills of Kiev. The first Christian community on territory of modern Ukraine is documented as early as the 4th century with the establishment of the Metropolitanate of Gothia, which was centered in the Crimean peninsula. However, on territory of the Old Rus in Kiev, Christianity became the dominant religion since its official acceptance in 989 by Vladimir the Great, who brought it from Byzantine Crimea and installed it as the state religion of medieval Kievan Rus (Ruthenia), with the metropolitan see in Kiev.
Daegu, formerly spelled Taegu and officially Daegu Metropolitan City (대구광역시), is a city in southeastern South Korea.
The Orthodox Church in Japan or Orthodox Church of Japan, also known as the Japanese Orthodox Church is an autonomous Eastern Orthodox church within the jurisdiction of the Moscow Patriarchate. ハリストス is a transcription from the Russian word for "Christ," Христос.
Keimyung University, abbreviated as KMU or Keimyung (Korean: 啓明), is a private university located in Daegu, the fourth largest city in South Korea. The university was founded in 1954 with the support of the leaders of the Northern Presbyterian Church of the U.S. as a Christian university. KMU is composed of three campuses in the city of Daegu, South Korea. They are named for their locations within the city; Daemyeong, which is near the downtown area, Seongseo, which is in the western part of the city, and also Dongsan campus which includes Dongsan Medical Center.
An association football tournament was played as part of the 1988 Summer Olympics in South Korea, featuring 16 men's national teams from six continental confederations. The teams were drawn into four groups of four with each group playing a round-robin tournament. At the end of the group stage, the top two teams advanced to the knockout stage, beginning with the quarter-finals and culminating with the gold medal match at the Seoul Olympic Stadium on 1 October 1988.
Ukrainian Village is a Chicago neighborhood located on the near west side of Chicago. Its boundaries are Division Street to the north, Grand Avenue to the south, Western Avenue to the west, and Damen Avenue to the east. It is one of the neighborhoods in the West Town community area, and has one of the largest concentrations of Ukrainians in the United States, as the commercial and spiritual hub for nearly 70,000 Ukrainians in the greater Chicago region.
The Embassy of the United States in Seoul is the diplomatic mission of the United States in South Korea. The embassy is charged with diplomacy and South Korea–United States relations. The United States Ambassador to Korea is the head of the diplomatic mission of the United States to South Korea.
Russia–South Korea relations or Russian–South Korean relations are the bilateral foreign relations between Russia and South Korea. Modern relations between the two countries began on September 30, 1990. Due to the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, relations became very tense after South Korea imposed sanctions against Russia. Russia placed South Korea on a list of "unfriendly countries", along with Taiwan, Japan, Singapore, the United States, European Union members, NATO members, Australia, New Zealand, Switzerland, Micronesia and Ukraine.
Alexandra Petrovna Kim was a revolutionary political activist of Korean descent. Having joined the Bolsheviks in 1916, she is recognized as the first Korean communist.
Karl Ivanovich Weber was a diplomat of the Russian Empire and a personal friend to King Gojong of Korea's Joseon Dynasty. He is best known for his 1885–1897 service as Russia's first consul general to Korea.
The Metropolis of Korea is an Eastern Orthodox diocese under the jurisdiction of the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople in Korea.
Eastern Orthodoxy in Korea consists of two Eastern Orthodox churches and a religious organization, the canonical Korean Orthodox Church in South Korea and the Korean Orthodox Committee in North Korea. Korean Orthodox Committee operates the Church of the Life-Giving Trinity (Pyongyang).
Eastern Orthodoxy in Taiwan represents Christians in Taiwan who are adherents of the Eastern Orthodox Church.
Terenty Fomich Shtykov was a Soviet general who was the de facto head of the Soviet 1945–1948 military occupation of northern Korea and the first Soviet Ambassador to North Korea from 1948 until 1950. Shtykov's support for Kim Il Sung was crucial in his rise to power, and the two persuaded Stalin to allow the Korean War to begin in June 1950.
The Church of the Life-Giving Trinity (Korean: 평양정백사원) is a Russian Orthodox church in Jongbaek-dong, Rangrang District in Pyongyang, North Korea. It is the first and only Orthodox church in the country, and one of only a handful of Christian churches there overall.
The Patriarchal Exarchate in South-East Asia is an exarchate created by the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC) on 28 December 2018.
Archbishop Theophanes is a bishop of the Russian Orthodox Church; he is the Archbishop of the Russian Orthodox diocese of Korea of the Patriarchal Exarchate in South-East Asia.
Annie Laurie Adams Baird was an American Presbyterian missionary in Korea, serving with her husband, Rev. William M. Baird at various stations between 1891 and 1916. She wrote about her work in Daybreak in Korea (1909) and Inside Views of Mission Life (1913).
The Diocese of Korea is a diocese of the Russian Orthodox Church which covers the territory Korea. It is part of the Patriarchal Exarchate in South-East Asia.
St. Nicholas Cathedral is the main cathedral of the Metropolis of Korea. It is located in Ahyeon-dong, Mapo District, Seoul, South Korea.
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