Christian commune or 'full-fledged cult'? What you don't know about this Cincinnati church

Cincinnati Inquirer/January 26, 2025

By Victoria Moorwood

This story has been updated. An ex-member requested her name be redacted from this story for fear of retaliation from the church. The Enquirer has removed her name.

Samantha Hall felt her mental health hit an all-time low in 2017. She was 20, dealing with the pressures of student life at the University of Cincinnati, depressed and had recently been hospitalized after trying to take her own life.

That’s why when a friend suggested attending a new church, she was open to it.

Like dozens of others, Hall felt immediately embraced when she walked through the doors at Madison Place Community Church in Cincinnati's Madisonville neighborhood. Members sang and prayed together at the Thursday night service, the only service open to newcomers, and welcomed her like a family member.

"Everybody was smiling – it was the best energy I'd ever felt in a church," she told The Enquirer.

Samantha Hall, now 28, left Madison Place Community Church in August 2020. She says she was intimidated to remain a member of the church.

For the next three years, Hall became immersed in the small but growing community, which is different from other churches in Cincinnati. Its roughly 100 members own houses and businesses together. They share finances and live by strict rules, which can mean handing over their salaries, car keys and cellphones.

For some, the church provides housing, community and stability during the hardest times in their lives. Others, like Hall, said the church became a manipulative, all-consuming force that left them emotionally traumatized and financially ruined.

Hall, who left Madison Place in 2020, said the church took over every aspect of her life and cut her off from family and friends.

“Eventually I got so indoctrinated that I didn’t care,” she said.

The Enquirer spoke to over a dozen ex-members and their relatives who told similar stories, but also to current members who said the church saved them from homelessness, substance use and abusive relationships.

As the church and its presence in Madisonville continues to grow, so does its reputation. The Madison Place, a popular coffee shop owned and run by members, opened in 2021. In the streets surrounding the church, members are buying up and renovating homes.

“I’ve seen them being very friendly, helping neighbors, and that’s the kind of community you want to live in," said Chris Bonfeld, who has lived in the neighborhood for 15 years. "But you hear things, and that’s the concerning part.”

What is Madison Place Community Church?

Lead pastor Zak Kijinski founded Madison Place in 2007, though it was called Gladstone Community Church until 2016. Members met inside Mariemont Community Church before the church got its own building on Plainville Road in 2017.

In the blocks surrounding the church, members own more than 30 homes, according to property records and Enquirer research. Most members live in these homes, which are divided by gender and house eight to 10 people.

Madison Place Community Church moved into its building on Plainville Road in 2017.
Food, housing and other needs are paid for by the church's "common purse," a shared pot of money funded by members' salaries. Members are expected to work 40 hours per week and should "seek the Lord on what to do with" money in their savings accounts, according to member agreement forms obtained by The Enquirer.

Members also own and employ each other at a construction company called Handy Home Guys LLC and a catering group, according to state records. They rent out the space above the coffee shop as an Airbnb.

Church members who don't work for these businesses, or other companies in Cincinnati, perform unpaid labor within the community, including running the homeschool and daycare, cooking meals for the congregation and renovating members' homes.

A budget spreadsheet, provided in 2023 to The Enquirer by a church member in charge of finances, shows members request money from the common purse to pay for things like car oil changes, medical supplies and new jeans.

Ex-members said they got a $100 monthly stipend but were encouraged to donate that money back to the church. Elders, all of whom are men, are given $200 per month, according to some ex-members.

For its unique way of living, the church has faced a fair bit of controversy. A 2016 Cincinnati Magazine article delved into Kijinksi's past as a purported vampire slayer, and the church subsequently changed its name. Ex-members aired their grievances about Madison Place on an Indiana minister's podcast about spiritual abuse as recently as September. A former member posted TikTok videos in August about how she "accidentally joined a cult," racking up thousands of views. Rumors about the group have fueled more than a few Cincinnati subreddit threads.

The church acknowledges the controversy on its website and says it won't let "pernicious rumors" detract from its goal of doing good in the world.

"All this is only to say that, while we are aware of some of the gossip and slander spread about our fellowship, we have made the decision together not to engage with it, or spend time defending ourselves," the site reads.

Two leaders spoke to The Enquirer, but requests for comment from Kijinski and other elders were not returned.

"It's not for everybody," said Denis Beausejour, the former pastor at Mariemont Community Church. His two children used to be members of Madison Place. "Some people need more structure to overcome the things that are ruining their life."

One ex-member, June Stickler, called the church a "full-fledged cult." Naomi Wright, founder of Be Emboldened Ministries, a Colorado-based counseling practice that specializes in religious abuse, said it meets several criteria of being considered a cult and called it, at least, "cultish."

"We (the church) can say, 'Oh, people are able to leave. They can come and go as they please.' But we can have these indirect steps that we’ve taken that actually really inhibit them so they can't," said Wright, who has counseled some former Madison Place members.

Getting new members: Is the church helping or hurting vulnerable people?
Besides Thursday night services, the church also gains new members through its free drug detox program. Advocates of the church say the program is one way the church helps people who need it most.

Gloria Cole, who has been a member off and on for a few years, did not participate in the program but said Madison Place offered her shelter and stability when she was experiencing homelessness.

But some ex-members said they felt the church exploited vulnerable people.

“They target certain people – drug addicts, depressed people, kids that don’t have a home anymore," said June Stickler, a member from 2014 to 2018.

Participants in the drug detox program were required to perform unpaid manual labor such as renovating members' homes, said Jeremy Hinkler, who led the program from 2016 to 2020. He ultimately quit the program and the church because he said elders pushed him to always encourage participants to join the church, even if that wasn't what he thought was best for them.

"They (the church leaders) make you dependent on them," he said. "They put people in the position to where they need them for everything – your faith, your sobriety, your money. So for people that have separated from them, they usually crash and burn.”

Pure Life Ministries, a residential program for Christian men struggling with sex addiction in Kentucky, has encouraged its "graduates" to join Madison Place for the past 10 years.

"When they graduate (the program), a lot of them are little nervous about going back out into American life, so there are some guys that want more accountability," said Pure Life President Steve Gallagher.

Madison Place provides that.

Gallagher said he talked to church leaders after hearing ex-members' allegations on a podcast. He doesn't believe there's anything "overly cultish" going on.

"You know, if people come into that community and they're willing to live there under those conditions, who am I to say anything about it?"

Church member Cebastian Hilton (left) owns Handy Home Guys LLC. Brian Roselli (right) is an elder and has been part of the church since its beginning.

Life in the church: 'I lost complete control over my life'

Two months after her first Thursday night service, Samantha Hall moved into a home with nine other women and assimilated to community life. She saw how members "worshiped" Kijinski "like a king or a God," and said she was taught to kiss his hands.

She agreed to hand over her cellphone and car keys to church leaders for 30 days but said she did not get them back for two years.

Life in the community meant adhering to a strict schedule. Hall slept in a bunk bed, woke daily at 5 a.m. for prayer and worked six days per week cooking meals for the congregation. On Saturdays, she worked for a cleaning business owned by a fellow member. Sundays were dedicated to shared home duties and errands, or fundraising for church mission trips.

"This is buying us into heaven," Hall remembered thinking. “I was tired the whole time, but I never questioned that tiredness.”

An ex-member of the church, who requested anonymity and was part of the church from 2012 to 2019, had a hard time conforming to the routine. She worked as a nanny and house cleaner, cooked for the congregation and was responsible for mentoring others and hosting community events.

“We were just so freaking busy all the time and it wasn’t by choice,” she said. “It was like, ‘You’re doing this. And if you’re not doing this, you need to think about why you wouldn’t do this for God.’”

With each hour scheduled and free time discouraged, she said she felt her personal autonomy slip away. She didn't get along with her housemates but wasn't allowed to move houses. She wanted to go back to college but was told to get a job instead.

"I lost complete control over my life in every conceivable way, and that is what really broke me," she said.

Along with daily routines and transportation, church leaders also have influence over members' communication with people outside the church. Three parents of members told The Enquirer they had been estranged or cut off by their children, and some ex-members said they were prevented from contacting friends outside the church.

When she left Madison Place in 2019 after two years of membership, Christy Hilton said elders persuaded her then-17-year-old daughter to break off communication with her.

Christy Hilton lived in the church community and was a member from 2017 to 2019. Two of her children are still members of the church and she no longer has regular contact with them.
Hall said she was only allowed to call her mom once a week using a housemate's phone. Former member Jeremiah Zoltani said he ultimately left Madison Place because members were preventing him from seeing his son, who lived with family outside the community.

“The way that it’s done was so subtle,” the ex-member who spoke to The Enquirer anonymously said. “Members would ask, 'Why would you spend time with an outside friend when you could spend time with community?’ It’s not, ‘You can’t do that.’ It’s, ‘Why would you do that?'"

Church leader Cebastian Hilton, Christy Hilton's son, said the church only makes suggestions to members about severing harmful relationships and does not stop people from having ties outside the church.

Some ex-members also said their therapy appointments were controlled by the church. Madison Place paid David Barr, a Norwood-based therapist, to counsel members from 2008 to 2020. Hall and others said they were required to take another member with them to their sessions with Barr. The therapist told The Enquirer it's not uncommon for women in religious groups to bring a friend with them to sessions, and said none of his clients expressed fears about the church.

Members' strict schedules and heavy workloads were in stark contrast to elders' lives, Hall said.

“They live differently than everybody else. There’s an assigned woman to do each elder’s laundry and it is an honor," she said. “The elders are probably the most taken-care-of men in the city of Cincinnati. They have everything they need and more.”

Pure Life president Gallagher, who's known church elders for at least 10 years, said they're quick to sacrifice their own time and resources to help others.

"I feel like they have strong integrity in the leadership team there," he said. "They do a lot to help people. That's what impresses us the most about them."

'Not a normal exit': Followers hatch 'plan' to leave
The ex-member who spoke to The Enquirer anonymously said a lack of control over her own life "slowly eroded" her mental health. In 2019, she was hospitalized. It was then that she decided to leave the church.

“I had lost myself so much because of how brainwashed I was and what I’d been told," she said. “I knew that if I tried (to leave) I’d have to have a really good plan."

She secretly put aside money from her job as a nanny for six months so she could save up to get an apartment. She made a Facebook account to connect with people outside the church so she’d have support when she left.

“I couldn’t say to anyone (in the church) I was planning on leaving because it would’ve been conversation after conversation until they broke me," she said.

Former members said they were excommunicated after leaving Madison Place and were not entitled to any of the money they had contributed to the common purse.

“They gave me nothing when I left. Absolutely nothing," the anonymous ex-member said. "And I had given them my entire salary for seven years.”

Hall said people sometimes left in the middle of the night to avoid a confrontation with leaders and other members.

"It's not a normal exit from a church where you can still go get coffee. I will never see them again if they don’t leave," she said. "They told me I was going to die (if I left). That was the scariest thought in the world."

Church leaders acknowledged that even when a member leaves the church on good terms, it's painful to break these almost familial bonds. But they say no one is intimidated to stay.

“If you want to leave that’s OK. We aren’t going to keep you here. That would be silly,” said member Amanda Bohnhoff, who joined the church in 2010 and manages the community’s finances. “We love them and have enjoyed the relationship.”

Amanda Bohnhoff, a members since 2010, said people aren't prevented from leaving the church: “We love them and have enjoyed the relationship.”
None of the ex-members who spoke to The Enquirer said they maintained relationships with current members.

Former Mariemont Community Church pastor Denis Beausejour said he had heard ex-members' concerns and offered advice to church elders.

"Once a person has decided to leave, you ought to bless them and send them away with a good financial gift and with your blessing," he said in an interview. "Wouldn't you rather have 100 ambassadors in the city, rather than 100 disgruntled people who are making podcasts?"

Ex-members grapple with life after Madison Place

In August 2020, the world was several months into a pandemic. In Madisonville, Samantha Hall, now 23, was ready to leave the church she had called home for three years.

“That was the most isolated I've ever felt. Being in COVID and a cult was so intense," she said. "I was lucky, I had a mom who could come get me and live in her house for free."

Those without a social safety net outside the church face more difficulty leaving. Hilton and other ex-members, some still living in Greater Cincinnati, have formed a group that helps people who want to leave by offering them money and transportation.

"They don’t have any money, they have no job history for references, they have literally nothing to leave with and that does keep a lot of people there," Hilton said.

But a car and cash are just the first steps on a road to recovery.

“When someone leaves a high control group where there’s this centralized power that has a lot of control over people’s lives, jobs and day-to-day functioning – they lose everything," Wright, the counselor, said. "Oftentimes, people lose their world view, which is how we filter ideas and think about things, and that really shakes people up."

Years later, Hall has mended the relationships she lost while a member of the church. She got a job at a sandwich shop and no longer practices Christianity. She said she's still healing from her time in Madison Place.

“I truly thought God was going to kill me because of my sins," she said. “Once I didn’t die (after leaving), I was like, 'OK, how much s--- have I believed for so long, and what's real and what's not?'”

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