A Chinese magazine says North Korea is building a Christian Orthodox church in Pyongyang.

The latest edition of the Global Times, affiliated with the People’s Daily, reported that the construction of the Orthodox church, the fourth in the North, is nearing completion in the North's capital, which was once called the "Jerusalem of the Far East.”

Construction of the pink building started in June 2003 in eastern Pyongyang.

The report said the North had some 2,000 churches in the 1900s but 1,200 of them were destroyed during Japanese occupation and the remainder was demolished by U.S. bombings during the Korean War.