North Korea: first Russian Orthodox Church to be opened

The Trinity Church is to hold its first services Sunday and a Russian delegation will be visiting the North to mark the occasion, Natalia Stepanova, an attache at the embassy, said by telephone from Pyongyang.

North Korea allows freedom of religion in principle, but practice is severely restricted to officially recognized groups linked to the government, the U.S. State Department said in its latest annual human rights report, the AP reports.

Instead, the country's late founding ruler Kim Il Sung is the object of quasi-religious worship and the focus of a massive personality cult that also includes his son, current North Korean ruler Kim Jong Il.