Pastor Lee candidate to succeed late Rev. Ha at Onnuri Church

Pastor Lee Jae-hoon of Onnuri Church in Yangjae-dong in southern Seoul is now the final candidate to succeed the late Rev. Ha Yong-jo, founder of the mega church who died from cerebral hemorrhage in August.

Onnuri Church has nine branch churches across the nation, four prayer buildings and 25 “vision churches.” Its membership recently reached 75,000.

The church conference picked Lee, 43, as the final candidate to succeed Ha on Saturday, as Lee won about 58 percent of conference members’ votes.

If Lee gets majority approval at a church public meeting on Friday, where church members aged over 18 will gather, he will be confirmed as Ha’s successor.

Lee graduated from Hapdong Theological Seminary and became a pastor in 1998. He worked for Onnuri Church for 10 years from 1996, including four years as personal assistant to Ha. In 2005, he started serving as a pastor of the Chodae Community Church in New Jersey. Since July 2009, Lee has been leading the Onnuri Church in Yangjae.

By Kim Yoon-mi (yoonmi@heraldcorp.com)