Saturday July 27 1996
CLARENCE TSUI
A minister from the church in which cult leader the Reverend Leung Yat-wah began his religious life has slammed the Church of Zion as heretical.
The Hong Kong True Church minister, Mrs Chan, said: ‘We believe that interpretations which were out of line with the Bible were heretical.
‘[The Church of Zion] was a heresy and Mr Leung should know better that preaching heresy would bring severe circumstances,’ she said.
‘We ejected him from our church [in 1987] because he had gone astray.
‘We reproached him because it is not right to pull believers from other churches to his own.’ One of the creeds Mr Leung preaches at the Church of Zion was that a quick increase in the number of believers was the sign of a strong church, while smaller churches were considered to be weak, ‘split by God’ or ‘bundled up by Satan’.
‘Other churches have rung us up, asking about Mr Leung’s actions – but we were not to blame for what he did,’ Mrs Chan said.
‘We are an orthodox church, but every big tree must have a broken branch.’ Mr Leung was also involved in the Revival Christian Church.
The leaders of the church could not be contacted yesterday, but a worker said Mr Leung had only appeared at some Sunday sharing activities 10 years ago.