They were pillars of their church, congregants in a little-known denomination that sets itself apart from the world and teaches that even the most unconscionable acts can be wiped away — not just forgiven, but forgotten and never spoken of again.

So it went in a rural Wyoming church, where a man was accused of sexually abusing young girls hundreds of times in the pews during Sunday services. Though the preacher knew of the abuse, he never reported it to police, local prosecutors said. Instead, he told the man to seek therapy.

In Minnesota, a man from the same faith admitted that he began entering the bedrooms of his daughter and son at night around the time each of them turned 12. He and his siblings grew up in the church and were sexually abused themselves, and then he repeated the abuse with his own children.

And in Washington state, preachers knew a member of their congregation had sexually abused several young boys. Instead of reporting him to police, they allowed him to ask for forgiveness, according to a family member, and he continued to sexually abuse children. He was later found guilty of raping the 9-year-old son of a church member and sentenced to life in prison.

The abusers and victims all belonged to the Old Apostolic Lutheran Church, or the OALC, a Scandinavian-rooted revivalist church that teaches its followers that heaven is reserved just for them. To get there, according to current and former members, they must follow a strict doctrine, which emphasizes asking for forgiveness for their sins and says that being forgiven by a fellow church member washes away those sins.

What’s more, the church teaches that once a perpetrator is forgiven, anyone who speaks about the wrongdoing — including the victim — can be accused of harboring an unforgiving heart. Those who have left the church, as well as some who are still with it, say this means the burden of sin shifts from the person who committed the act to the person who refuses to let the matter rest.

Sexual abuse survivors say these rituals have created a culture where allegations of abuse are resolved outside of the criminal justice system and the victims must bear their pain alone or risk going to hell. In some families, sexual abuse stretches across generations, ensnaring a parent, child and grandchild.

“This is what I would call institutionalism of abuse of young women and children,” said DaNece Day, the prosecuting attorney for Crook County in Wyoming, whose office has charged two OALC members in the past two years.

Day and other prosecutors said one of the biggest obstacles to breaking the cycle is the way church members move among congregations spread across the U.S. and Canada, often hundreds of miles apart but tightly bound by large, multigenerational family networks.

Last fall, ProPublica and the Minnesota Star Tribune reported that preachers in Minnesota had known for years about allegations that one of its members, a man named Clint Massie, had sexually abused young girls in the congregation. But instead of reporting it to police, church leaders urged some of the victims to take part in sessions where they were brought face-to-face with Massie and encouraged to forgive the abuse.

Now, new reporting by the two news organizations shows how the sexual abuse of children in the OALC, as well as the failure by church leaders to report it to authorities, is a persistent and national problem.

Some current and former OALC members are calling on elders from what the church regards as its mother congregation in Sweden — where the church originated — to intervene. In fact, those elders, who don’t have authority over the American church but wield considerable influence, are coming to the U.S. and Canada this summer to meet with congregations. What they’ll find are a growing number of criminal cases against church members and increasing legal scrutiny of leaders for failing to report allegations of sexual abuse to police.

In a statement, representatives from the Swedish church said the cases are isolated incidents and they didn’t “observe any pattern” among the tens of thousands of members in 34 OALC congregations in the U.S. and Canada. They said sexual abuse should be reported to authorities and that it was possible “some matters have been handled improperly or without sufficient knowledge.” And they acknowledged that church guidelines “are being reviewed with the American missionary pastors in order to ensure compliance.”

Representatives of the OALC in the U.S. and Canada said in an email that they also “do not perceive there to be a general pattern of behavior,” describing sexual abuse as a serious and persistent problem across society. They acknowledged that bringing a victim to face their abuser, as a pastor for the OALC church did with Massie, can be traumatic. But they defended the church’s doctrine of forgiveness, saying it was not a means to conceal wrongdoing or to shield offenders from legal consequences, and no one is coerced to forgive or to ask for........

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