The sect fled to the Czech Republic. At home, she is suspected of beating children

They called themselves Father’s House and originated in Denmark. A religious community that, due to suspicions of psychological and physical abuse of children, had to leave the Nordic country and move to the Czech Republic, where the authorities were also interested in it, but found nothing objectionable. Danish sectarians are dealt with in the second part of the investigative podcast series Sekty CZ, which comes out in the 5:59 podcast.

What will you hear in the second part of the Sekty CZ series?

I only asked about the Danish movement House of the Father and its leader, 71-year-old Ruth Kristiansen, in Copenhagen. This is where this Christian community was established in the nineties of the last century. Then it moved to the seaside island town of Bandholm and finally settled in the north of Bohemia eight years ago.

He owns three properties there, all of which are currently for sale. They look abandoned, I have visited most of them. In addition, it seems that the community, which people in Denmark refer to as a sect, will continue to wander with its children. It is the children who are important in this story.

The Danish authorities suspect the group of physical and psychological violence against children. But before they could check it, the whole community suddenly ran away from Denmark, to the Czech Republic. And why to us? Maybe because we are one of the last countries in the European Union where physical punishment of the smallest is still allowed.

The first part of the Sekty CZ podcast series about the Novija Gán Sepat movement

One of the former members of the movement, Cammila Johnson, in an interview with the Danish podcast Ruth’s House, produced by the studio Third Ear, described how the leader Ruth Kristiansen forced parents to beat their offspring for the slightest transgression against exemplary behavior. But not with the hand, because according to Ruth, that’s not right. Newspapers, tapes or even whips were used.

Another former member of the community, who was in the Czech Republic with her family until 2020 and spoke about it to the Danish newspaper Jyllands Posten last year, was sent to prison for two months by the court in her country. And that’s precisely because her son confided in school that his parents beat him. The fact that the authorities removed the family’s son and two other children from care also testifies to how serious the situation was.

Ruth Kristiansen stated on her YouTube channel that they left Denmark because of public harassment against their community and that the media is only slandering them.

My search for sects began exactly one year ago with this very Danish story, which was first pointed out by the website investigace.cz. And I soon found out that one of the houses, or rather a small mansion in the village of Velký Valtinov, which belongs to the family of the leader Ruth Kristiansen, was for sale, and I went to northern Bohemia to find out more about the sect.

Last May, my cameraman Honza Pospíšil and I first went to Velké Valtinov to the property, which I read in an advertisement that it was a two-story building with five living rooms, seven bedrooms and two kitchens. The house has undergone an extensive renovation, it is furnished in a Scandinavian style and you can enjoy a luxurious life in a castle. For sale for 35 million crowns.

We go around the grounds around the castle, but no one is there. Later, I learn from the mayor of the village, Josef Lukavac, that the police asked about the Danish community because of the children. But neither he nor the residents of the village we talked to saw any children there.

We learn more in Zahrádky near Česká Lípa, where the Kristiansen family has a farm. We did not see the children there and the people from the farm refused to talk to us, but the mayor of Zahrádek, Martin Macho, told us more. According to him, there are 18 Danish residents reported in the village, of which 10 are children.

“I generally meet children here on the multi-purpose field or the soccer field, where they go to play, dig in, they have something like training there, but as far as I know, none of them go to school,” Mayor Macho tells me. People do not see the leader of the religious movement Ruth Kristiansen in Zahrádky.

The last destination of our trip is in Cvikov – a three-story villa, which is the third house of the Kristiansen family here. It is partially hidden under the scaffolding on which young Danish workers are working. One has fun with us for a while. At first he claims that he does not know the Kristiansen family, later he admits that they are his relatives. He does not want to pass on the contact to them and does not want to talk more.

Neighbors say Ruth Kristiansen sometimes drives there, but doesn’t live there. “There were quite a few children here. We watched that they were also without parents. There were probably only some nannies with them. Then the children disappeared,” describes one of the residents of Cvikov.

Denmark first asked the Czech authorities for help in the case of children from this Christian community in 2019. Then it remained silent for four years and spoke again after the publication of the testimony of a former member in the Danish newspaper Jyllends Posten. The Danes communicated with the Office for the International Protection of Children (ÚMPOD). The suspicions about which the Czech authorities were informed sounded serious.

“Those claims can be summed up in some group of psychological violence, failure to attend school, children living in isolation, separation from parents or other caregivers. I believe that the statements themselves lead to the need to think about a possible threat,” ÚMPOD director Zdeněk Kapitán told me about this a year ago.

The Danish newspaper later published even more articles. According to them, 13 former members of the movement turned to the police due to concerns about the fate of the children. People who have relatives in the sect were also concerned. The Danish Minister of Social Affairs also faced criticism for laziness in this case. All this because Denmark still does not know how the children in the Czech Republic, if they are still here, are actually doing well.

And what did the Czech authorities end up with? After a year, I turned to Zdenek Kapitán again. He replied that “competent authorities have checked the situation and found nothing to indicate illegal conduct.” Nevertheless, the office is said to turn to the body for the social and legal protection of children.

Did the Czech OSPOD find out anything more? What else have former members said about the sect? And what did the sudden flight of the community from Denmark look like? You will find out in the Sekty CZ podcast, the second part of which you can listen to at the beginning of the article.

Sekty CZ podcast series

Photo: List of News

The news podcast 5:59 and Seznam Zprávy brings another investigative series, this time with the title CZ sects. Experienced Seznam Zpráv reporter Kristina Ciroková is looking for people who are at the head of manipulative religious groups and who benefit, financially as well as otherwise, from the pressure on their members, who in many cases are also minors through their parents. They are stories of physical and psychological abuse, sexual violence and seemingly hopeless life situations, which in several cases ended in death.

A seven-part podcast series CZ sects is released every Friday as part of the 5:59 podcast.

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