5 takeaways from our investigation into the Old Apostolic Lutheran Church in Duluth

Our investigation of a little-known church community in northeastern Minnesota started with something that has become depressingly familiar: child sex abuse.

The Minnesota Star Tribune and ProPublica found that some members of the Old Apostolic Lutheran Church community in Duluth enabled Clint Massie, who pleaded guilty to sexually abusing young girls. Massie is serving a sentence at the state prison in Faribault.

The Old Apostolic Lutheran Church — which has no affiliation with any mainstream Lutheran denominations and is known as the OALC — is an insular community with many Old World traditions. There is no official count, but one academic study estimated 31,000 members worldwide as of 2016, with most in the United States.

We examined hundreds of pages of criminal records, conducted more than a dozen interviews with alleged victims across the country, reviewed video and audio of police interviews with Massie, victims and church leaders, and attended a church service at the Woodland Park Old Apostolic Lutheran Church in Duluth.

Daryl Bruckelmyer, a preacher there, declined to comment or answer a detailed list of questions for this story. But in a 2023 interview with a St. Louis County detective, he acknowledged knowing about Massie’s sexual abuse.

He said at the time that it was up to the victims to report the crimes to police, a clear misreading of the law for mandated reporters — doctors, teachers and others who are required to report crimes against children.

“We don’t protect either one,” Bruckelmyer said of sexual abusers and their victims.

Church leaders knew about the abuse: Leaders of Bruckelmyer’s church didn’t report Massie to police though they knew he’d sexually abused girls for years and Bruckelmyer had been told by police that reporting it was their duty. It was an open secret in the congregation: Mothers warned their daughters to stay away from Massie, victims said. Church leaders also sent Massie to a therapist who specialized in sex offender treatment. In December 2024, Massie pleaded guilty to four felony counts of sexual conduct with a victim under the age of 13. In March, a judge sentenced him to 7½ years in prison.

Victims were told to “forgive and forget”: Church leaders held meetings where children were told to forgive the man who sexually abused them and forget the abuse. If they spoke of it, the sin would be theirs. The meetings, described by victims to the police and confirmed through our reporting, ended with a church leader allowing Massie to hug the victim. An internal church document also outlines guidelines for handling abuse and suggests that, when appropriate, both parties be brought together for a discussion.

Missed opportunities to intervene: Prosecutors had at least one opportunity to intervene but hoped educating church leaders about their duties would encourage them to cooperate with authorities. Our reporting found that church leaders did not report what they learned about Massie despite a state law requiring clergy and others to share the information with law enforcement. According to law enforcement notes, church leaders told investigators that they encourage abuse victims to go to police, but that they believed it was “on [victims] to do that.”

John Hiivala, a spokesperson for the Woodland Park Old Apostolic Lutheran Church in Duluth, said that the church “has fully complied with the law in the referenced case and it’s a matter of legal record.”

Kimberly Lowe, a lawyer and crisis manager for the church, said its preachers are unpaid and therefore might not be legally required to report sexual abuse of children. Asked if she believes the preachers are mandated reporters under Minnesota law, Lowe would only say that the language of the statute is unclear.

Victims sue: Since Massie’s sentencing, two of his alleged victims have filed lawsuits against him, their church in South Dakota and the OALC. They have retained the same lawyer who represented some of the victims in the Jeffrey Epstein case.