Secretive church at center of S.Korea's explosive coronavirus outbreak

* Movement claims it is 'biggest victim'DAEGU/SEOUL, South Korea - An So-young had a gut feeling that the 31st person in South Korea to test positive for the coronavirus might be a member of the controversial religious sect she quit four years ago.

The South Korean disease control chief Jeong Eun-kyeong said the church's services, where thousands of people sit on the floor, shoulder-to-shoulder, for hours, could have contributed to the surges. After initial resistance, the church released the addresses of 1,100 facilities around the country - 82 churches and 1,018 "affiliates," - and asked the public to avoid making "groundless criticism." It was the "biggest victim of the virus," it said.

"This disease case is the devil's deed to stop the rapid growth of Shincheonji," Lee said in a message on Friday on an internal app used by members. The church has denied previous reports by Christian news organisations describing it as a "brainwashing cult", calling those accusations "blatant lies" and a plot to rein in its expansion.All members work as "harvesters" tasked with courting new followers from other churches, dubbed "harvest fields", former members said.

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