Seoul, South Korea - Online worship is thriving among South Koreans who are too busy to attend churches or temples, or who simply want to browse their preferred sermon, a news report said Monday.
Chosun Ilbo newspaper said some 135,000 people a day heard sermons on the website of
South Korea's largest church, the Yoido Full Gospel Church, compared to 40,000 or 50,000 who attended its Sunday services.
It said the number of religious websites on the country's largest Internet portal Naver was rising, with non-Catholic Christian churches accounting for 5,394, Catholicism 815 and Buddhism 1,439.
"It saves time and also allows me to pick whatever sermon I like," artist Lee Seong-Su, 32, who logs on to a church website at home on Sundays, told the paper.
In lieu of a collection plate, he makes an online donation.
Some believers in Won Buddhism, a religion indigenous to South Korea, observed Buddha's birthday last week only through the Internet, Chosun added.
It said priests were divided over the trend.
"The reality is that people are getting too busy to gather at a church service or Sunday mass," one told Chosun, describing the Internet as an effective evangelical tool.
But another priest hit back, saying: "A crucial part of religious activities is to meet with people. Salvation is in the temple, not on the Internet."
About 70 percent of South Koreans have access to broadband. The country also has East Asia's largest Christian population, after the Philippines.