Latest COVID-19 outbreak in South Korea linked to little-known church as cases surge
Global News
The country reported a new daily record of 4,116 cases for Tuesday and is battling a spike in serious cases that is straining hospitals.
A little known sect led by a pastor who pokes eyes to heal is at the centre of a COVID-19 outbreak in South Korea, as the country reported a new daily record of 4,116 cases for Tuesday and battles a spike in serious cases straining hospitals.
In a tiny rural church in a town of 427 residents in Cheonan city, south of Seoul, at least 241 people linked to the religious community had tested positive for coronavirus, a city official told Reuters on Wednesday.
Many of the congregation were elderly in their 60s and above and were unvaccinated, the official said. Just 17 out of the 241 confirmed cases had been vaccinated.
“I believe it’s the church’s anti-government beliefs that refrained the believers to get the vaccine,” the official said, adding that the town was put under a lockdown.
The church opened in the early 1990s and has ever since become larger with communal living facilities of its own.
The religion is not officially registered as a sect, however the ritual act the pastor performs is known as the so called “imposition of hands on eyes”, a practice of poking two eyes to rid of secular desire, Jung youn-seok, a head of cult information resources think tank told Reuters.
“Such act is extremely dangerous and non-biblical. It is an outright ban in Korean Christianity,” Jung said, adding that the pastor’s mother was a powerful figure and was ousted from Christian community in the 1990s for practicing identical rituals.
Calls to the church from Reuters went unanswered.
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