Last updated 20:13, May 15 2018
Gloriavale founder Hopeful Christian has died after a battle with cancer.
Hopeful Christian, founder of the Gloriavale commune and convicted sex offender, has died at the secluded community.
A family member told Stuff Christian, who was 92, died on Tuesday afternoon after a battle with cancer.
He founded the religious community in 1969 in North Canterbury. The group later moved to the West Coast in the early 1990s and has about 600 members.
Hopeful Christian founded the community in 1969.
The Gloriavale community was busy with many people walking around and children playing in the playground when Stuff visited on Tuesday evening.
Spokesman Fervent Steadfast said Hopeful Christian had dedicated 50 years of his life to the Gloriavale community and Jesus.
Gloriavale founder and leader Hopeful Christian has died.
"He's in heaven now. This [community] is the fruits of his labour," he said.
Succession plans and funeral arrangements were "all in order", Steadfast said, but he would not elaborate further.
He would not be drawn on who would replace Christian, saying he himself was one of a number of leaders at Gloriavale.
Grey District councillor Allan Gibson said Christian appeared frail and struggled to speak when he saw him at a meeting on Wednesday last week.
Constance Ready, 24, who was born in Glorivale decided 19 months ago she couldn't live there anymore and left.
Ready said Christian's death did not feel like tragedy at all.
"I only think that he did so much damage to the lives of many people it would have been nice if he had at least reached out to them before he passed, and owned the fact instead of continuing to believe that he was always in the right."
Constance's brother Luke Ready said "there are no words for the evil that man has propagated and condoned in the name of god".
"With the extent that he has hurt my family and other families ... I feel no remorse at his passing or empathy for the ones who'd mourn him."
He described Christian as "a master manipulator, he knew how to control people with fear".
"There's going to be a lot of people better off without him and a lot of people worse off."
In 1995, Christian was sent to jail for indecently assaulting Yvette Olsen nine years earlier.
He was found guilty of three charges of indecently assaulting Olsen at the Springbank Christian Community in Cust, North Canterbury, where the community was based at the time.
Olsen had her name suppression lifted in order to speak out against Cooper and the community. In 2015, she told TVNZ "[Cooper] didn't have the right to do what he did, he is no man of God".
The judge said it was difficult to imagine a more serious example of indecent assault.
He was sentenced to five years' jail, but spent just under two years behind bars.
Christian was interviewed in 2015 and made claims that some "medical vaccines contain the embryos of aborted fetuses", and 21st century technology was not part of the Gloriavale lifestyle.
There is probably no religious group New Zealanders have seen more of over the past decade than Gloriavale.
The West Coast Christian community has been featured in a series of documentaries and many news reports.
The allegations made against the community by former members have been well covered - the forced marriages, the sexual and physical abuse, the shunning of anyone who leaves, and the complete financial domination of all members.
The trust owns land worth about $10 million along with buildings, vehicles and equipment worth about $20 million.
Gloriavale members live within the confines of the West Coast base, sign over all their assets to the trust when they join, and work unpaid for the community.
Any income that community members earn is donated to the trust to cover food, medical costs, clothing and laundry costs for the community.