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CULT experts have vowed to keep tabs on a church group that has opened its new Melbourne headquarters in Pascoe Vale.

The Korean-based World Mission Society Church of God moved from Nunawading into a vacant church in Pascoe Vale Rd in April. Church deaconess Hilda Dursun said the church’s growing congregation prompted a move to bigger premises.

Cult experts contacted by the Leader said the group – which believes God lives in Korea in the form of a woman known as Heavenly Mother and that a man called Ahnsahnghong was the second coming of Jesus Christ – held views many mainstream Christians would find ‘‘unacceptable’’.

Melbourne cult support group organiser David Ayliffe, who coauthored the book My Brother’s Eyes about his involvement in a fundamentalist group in NSW, said the group’s views were of concern.

‘‘Their extreme claims concerning Ahnsahnghong and the woman known as God the Mother means they can exercise, whether they do or not, controlling authority over the lives of any followers simply because of their interpretation of ‘God said’,’’ Mr Ayliffe said.

Cult Information and Family Support network co-ordinator Ros Hodgkins said the group was lowkey in Australia but she was in contact with a group member’s parents. ‘‘They’ve had a pretty horrid time over the past couple of years,’’ Ms Hodgkins said.

‘‘Their child virtually gave and sold everything he had to get to Korea to meet with the saviour.’’

Cult Counselling Australia director Raphael Aron said the group was ‘‘very much out of the general square when it comes to Christian churches’’.

He said the group believed the world would end in 2012 and it needed 144,000 recruits before then.

But group members hit back, saying such claims were wrong.

Ms Dursun said the church’s teachings were all based on the Bible.

‘‘Many people can have their fixed idea about any church,’’ she said. ‘‘If people are against us, they are against people who follow God.’’

The group’s ‘‘overseer’’ Jeon Chang Joo said the church was seeking to bring unity to peoples lives. ‘‘Earth is a kind of village and family but people have forgotten the existence of God the Mother,’’ Mr Joo said.

Ms Dursun said the group was well-established worldwide with 1.1 million members and the United Nations had recently recognised its charity work in raising $100,000 for the Haiti disaster relief fund.