Admittedly, South Korea is the second largest sender of Christian missionaries in the world. North Korea's capital was the site of a phenomenal outbreak of Christian revival in 1907, and the very heroes of the Korean independence movement of the early twentieth century were, the vast majority, Christians.
People virtually worshiped in North Korea as state super-stars... were Christians.
Now granted, most of the churches that got a foothold in South Korea were Methodists and Presbyterians; that's what makes the Anglican presence on Ganghwa Island unexpected.
All of unified Korea was a "hermit kingdom" until just before the turn of the twentieth century. It was a capitol offense to be white in Korea. The Koreans were terribly suspicious of the west, of colonization, of ulterior motives. But once Korea opened up to westerners, it didn't take long for the first Anglican missionaries to make their way to Korea... and oddly enough they set foot first on Ganghwa.
Ganghwa is an island just off the coast of Korea, near Incheon, famous for yet another western landing only a few short decades later. The missionaries worked hard to faithfully wed the Christian faith with the beauty of the Korean landscape, culture, and architecture. And on Ganghwa, a small island, they planted two churches which converted local hanok style houses (traditional Korean homes which have, largely, been leveled in the South in the name of progress... although you can still find many of them functioning and lived in on the island) into literal house churches. It is the first, and to date most aesthetically pleasing and successful ecclesiological and architectural fusion between East and West.
Curved rooftops and sculptures on the corners that kept the evil spirits away in native religious practices stand as a silent testimony both to the respect for the indigenous culture and the reality of a demonic spiritual realm acknowledged by Christianity. Above the sculptures, however, rises a simple cross at the roof's peek. All things are subject to Jesus, after all.
A Buddhist style bell (though adorned with all sorts of Christian symbols and some text I can't read) called Christians to worship with its tone familiar to the natives.
Overall, the architect (who in fact was a royal palace architect) managed to create an entirely new style of church architecture. A style which reflects the ancient idea of house church, quite literally, and has been true both to the liturgy and worship of Anglicanism and the surroundings and culture in which it finds itself. Really I find this Anglo-Korean fusion to be quite attractive.
There was a service in progress so we did not (considering our language barriers especially) dare to barge in, but this is a place I'd definitely like to visit again. Both Ganghwa hanok churches remain active parishes, now over a hundred years later.