Shincheonji sect gathered in Wuhan during beginning of coronavirus outbreak, SCMP reports

Posted on : 2020-02-27 18:23 KST Modified on : 2020-02-27 18:23 KST
Reports indicate members continued to congregate in secret even after outbreak was publicized
A health worker at a hospital in Kunming, China, checks on a novel coronavirus patient using virtual reality goggles linked to a camera on Feb. 24. (Yonhap News)
A health worker at a hospital in Kunming, China, checks on a novel coronavirus patient using virtual reality goggles linked to a camera on Feb. 24. (Yonhap News)

The Shincheonji Church of Jesus engaged in ongoing missionary association and meeting activities in Wuhan as recently as December of last year, when the full-scale spread of the COVID-19 virus began, Hong Kong’s South China Morning Post reported on Feb. 26.

“Rumors about a virus began to circulate in November but no one took them seriously,” an anonymous 28-year-old Shincheonji member was quoted as saying.

“I was in Wuhan in December when our church suspended all gatherings as soon as we learned about [the coronavirus],” the same member was quoted as saying.

The member, who was identified as a kindergarten teacher, also said that the group had continued to share sermons and teachings online, but that most of its members had returned to South Korea around the Lunar New Year holiday in late January.

She was further quoted as saying, “I don’t think the virus came from us because none of our brothers and sisters [fellow order members] in Wuhan have been infected.”

“There are so many Chinese travelling to South Korea, it’s quite unfair to pin [the disease] on us,” she said.

But the newspaper also reported that the member “sidestepped questions” about whether Shincheonji members in Wuhan had visited South Korea since the COVID-19 outbreak began.

The reported quoted sources in China as estimating the number of Shincheonji members in Wuhan at around 200, with most of them currently under quarantine outside the city. Local members have reportedly continued holding small-scale services even after a 2018 raid by security authorities on a “holy temple” in central Wuhan’s Hankou neighborhood. A Protestant minister in Hubei Province, speaking on condition of anonymity, told the newspaper that Shincheonji members were “hard-working” in their religious activities, with some of them continuing to proselytize even after the COVID-19 virus outbreak began.

China currently has an estimated 20,000 Shincheonji members -- most of them Chinese -- with the majority living in major cities such as Beijing, Shanghai, Dalian, Changchun, and Shenyang, it was reported. Bill Zhang, a 33-year-old Shanghai resident who was previously active as a Shincheonji missionary, was quoted as saying the group’s secretive nature made it difficult for authorities to crack down.

“The Shincheonji church in Shanghai has been raided many times,” he said.

“But the church members simply continued their meetings in smaller groups of eight-to-10 people and regrouped when the surveillance was relaxed,” he added.

By Jung In-hwan, Beijing correspondent

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