A shadowy South Korean church at the center of the coronavirus epidemic in the country has been shut down, according to a new report Monday.

South Korean President Moon Jae-in on Sunday called the closure of branches of the Shincheonji Church of Jesus “a fair and inevitable step” to protect the community, according to the Washington Post.

More than half of the 833 COVID-19 cases in the East Asian nation have been traced to a branch of the Shincheonji Church of Jesus in Daegu, where an infected 61-year-old woman recently attended two services.

A spokesman for Shincheonji, Kim Si-mon, said late Sunday that its 1,100 churches nationwide have been closed and that its 245,000 followers were told to refrain from external activities.

Members of the group gather in a way that could propel the spread of the illness, according to the report.

They kneel on the floor in tight rows at temple halls and aren’t allowed to wear face masks during services, Shin Hyun-wook, a former Shincheonji member turned anti-cult crusader, told the newspaper.

The fringe movement’s messianic leader, Lee Man-hee, has called the spread of the virus “the devil’s deed to curb the rapid growth of Shincheonji.”

Members believe 88-year-old Lee, who founded the church in the 1980s, is the second coming of Jesus Christ who will save them from an apocalypse.

Local authorities have reached out to congregants in Daegu, but several hundred were unresponsive as of Sunday, according to the Washington Post.