Two former European pastors have accused Hillsong co-founder Brian Houston and the church's general manager of sending threatening emails during a dispute over the transfer of their church, cash, and assets to Hillsong Australia.
Zhenya and Vera Kasevich led the congregations of Hillsong Kyiv and Hillsong Moscow for two decades.
They have spoken to 7.30 for the first time about the circumstances behind their sudden departure from the megachurch.
It comes as the Pentecostal juggernaut faces one of its worst crises since its establishment in the early 1980s.
Last month, Hillsong's Sydney-based global pastor Brian Houston resigned after the church revealed it had received complaints from two women about his behaviour.
Since then, nine Hillsong branches in the US have broken away from the church.
Now, the former lead pastors of the Kyiv and Moscow churches say they too attempted to break away from the church in 2014.
They say they ultimately chose to hand over their churches and assets after Brian Houston threatened to open a rival Hillsong church in Kyiv.
Documents signed by Hillsong Australia general manager George Aghajanian show that Hillsong Church Ltd requested the Kasevichs make a "voluntary donation" of the proceeds of the sale of a property, as well as over $US230,000 in cash.
"No matter what decision you make, you lose."
At that time, the Kasevichs were planning to emigrate to the United States and were in the process of applying for US residency. Hillsong had agreed to assist them in dealing with US immigration.
In one email obtained by 7.30, George Aghajanian writes that he "can make things very difficult" for them "with the American authorities".
In another email, Brian Houston warns that Vera and Zhenya Kasevich "have a lot to fear" and that his general manager has "a lot of useful information for the US embassy" about the former Hillsong Kyiv pastors.
"Basically [Brian Houston] said ... 'This church is mine. I will make your life small. I will squash it,'" Vera Kasevich said.
Brian Houston told 7.30 in an email that the Kasevichs' account of the takeover of Hillsong Kyiv and Moscow was "a complete fantasy", and that he made no threats regarding the US embassy.
The Kasevichs said they were finally free to speak out about their ordeal because their US residency had been secured and they no longer felt intimidated by Hillsong's Australian leaders.
He said the aim of the takeover by the church's Sydney head office was "to get the assets of [Hillsong] Ukraine into their own hands".
'A voracious appetite for money': Growing the property empire
A 7.30 investigation has uncovered how the Sydney-based Pentecostal church has built a property empire, partly by taking financial control over other churches in Australia and globally.
The first takeover occurred in 2009, when Brisbane-based Garden City Christian Church merged with Hillsong. In the process, Hillsong acquired properties and assets valued at $12 million at the time.
Elsewhere in Australia, in 2013 and 2014, two churches in Victoria decided to merge with Hillsong, with three properties transferred to Hillsong. One of those properties was repurposed as a luxury rental.
In 2015, a Gold Coast church agreed to merge with Hillsong, transferring ownership and the mortgage on its Upper Coomera church building.
A year later, two churches in Darwin valued at more than $2 million were also transferred to Hillsong.
In 2020, a church hall at Joondalup in Western Australia — worth an estimated $2.5 million, with a small mortgage owing — was handed over to Hillsong.
As a registered charity, Hillsong is not required to pay taxes such as stamp duty on any real estate that it acquires.
A previous congregant from one of the churches that merged with Hillsong has told 7.30 that he never supported the move.
Lance Goodall, who attended Brisbane's Garden City Church, said a vote of church members at the time decided overwhelmingly to install Brian Houston as their senior pastor, but he felt that the discussion at the time glossed over some important questions.
"It was perplexing, to be honest with you."
Garden City Church eventually transferred the ownership of more than a dozen Brisbane properties to a Hillsong charity, with no money changing hands.
Lance Goodall says he was always sceptical about Hillsong's motivation for merging with Garden City.
"One of the key objectives in the takeover by Hillsong is the acquisition of property and assets," he said.
However, it's not only properties that Hillsong acquires at no cost — 7.30 tracked down a church whose funds ended up under Hillsong control.
Jaime San Martin, a previous assistant pastor at the Botany Spanish Church in Sydney in the early 2000s, said when his church joined the "Hillsong family" the church had to transfer all of its funds to a Hillsong account.
"They controlled everything," Mr San Martin told 7.30.
Mr San Martin had helped seal an agreement with Hillsong which he hoped would help his small congregation with administration and pastoral duties.
But ultimately, the relationship turned out to be "just a financial thing", he said.
"We were having difficulties accessing our own funds," Mr San Martin said.
"[Hillsong] were beginning to show signs of having a voracious appetite for money."
Mr San Martin's church separated from Hillsong in 2002.
Hillsong's expansion into the US
In 2010, Hillsong established its first campus in the United States, and has since expanded to 16 locations.
Since then, Texas-based private investigator Barry Bowen has tracked Hillsong's property expansion across the US. He told 7.30 that it's highly unusual for a charity to grow so quickly.
Mr Bowen works for the Trinity Foundation, which is dedicated to investigating church fraud. While he didn't find fraudulent activity, he did find a large number of properties that Hillsong owns across three US states.
"It owns at least three condominiums in New York City. It owns a $US3.5 million home in California," he said.
"When I searched in Arizona, I discovered 31 properties. If they don't sell any of those assets in the next year, it's expected to appreciate to over $40 million."
In Australia, 7.30 found that some of Hillsong's biggest assets are separated from the church's activities through its use of a web of interlinked charities and trusts.
Mr Bowen said he identified a similar strategy in the US, involving dozens of legal entities which he argues creates a firewall between the church and its properties.
According to Mr Bowen, this corporate structure means potential claimants in any litigation against Hillsong may have a hard time recovering any funds.
"If a victim sues the church, the church does not have major property assets," he said.
"The church is limited in what it can pay for a judgement. This protects the church financially from large lawsuits."
Brian Houston 'drawn to success'
From their new home in the US state of Florida, Zhenya and Vera Kasevich say their first church started as a small congregation in 1992, just as the fledgling independent nation of Ukraine was emerging from the collapse of the Soviet empire.
Hillsong Sydney sent an Australian pastor and some financial support to help them get established, and they named their church Hillsong, despite remaining independent.
The Kasevichs say that as the congregation in Kyiv grew in 2008, Brian Houston developed a growing interest in their church.
"He is drawn to success," said Vera Kasevich.
"Our church budget in Ukraine was almost $1 million a year, only from income from [donations]."
Mr Kasevich told 7.30 that he remembered having to pay large sums for guest speakers to attend a Hillsong conference in Kyiv.
"We could not look at our poor people's eyes and tell them we are using church money for our benefit and our luxurious life. So when we saw this, we started to raise questions."
As tensions rose, they claim Brian Houston began to challenge their independence, and that in 2014, he gave them an ultimatum — either stand aside or Hillsong would set up a rival church in Kyiv.
To prevent the congregation from being split up, Vera and Zhenya Kasevich agreed to leave the church.
The couple say they were asked to stay away from any church events and this "completely cut" their relationship with other church members who they described as their "only family".
"They cut our emails, they cut our database, they cut us from the server," Vera Kasevich said.
The Kasevichs were asked to sign a non-disclosure agreement with Hillsong which required them to never attend any service at Hillsong Kyiv or Hillsong Moscow, and not to directly contact Hillsong's leadership, its staff, or key volunteers.
The agreement, obtained by 7.30, was signed by Hillsong's general manager George Aghajanian, but the Kasevichs didn't agree to its terms and refused to sign it.
"They excommunicated us," Vera Kasevich said.
The couple say they are speaking out now in the hope that others with similar experiences feel heard.
Brian Houston has denied the Kasevichs' claims.
He said in an email that Hillsong provided financial support to Hillsong Kyiv over many years, and that he and his wife visited the Kyiv church on many occasions.
7.30 sent a list of detailed questions to Hillsong Australia, but it did not provide a response.
Watch this story on 7.30 tonight on ABC TV and ABC iview.
