Russian authorities have arrested a former traffic officer Sergei Torop, a Siberian cult leader, who claims to be the reincarnation of Jesus in a special operation. Torop, who branded himself as Vissarion, has been running a cult in Siberia for three decades. Helicopters and armed officers stormed communities run by Sergei Torop and arrested him and two of his aides, a Guardian report reads. 59-year-old Torop will face charges of organising an illegal religion and extorting money from his cult’s members, whom he is said to have emotionally abused.
The country’s Investigative Committee has accused Torop of using psychological violence to inflict harm on his followers. Torop, who sports long hair and a beard, was led by masked troops to the helicopter. Torop’s right-hand man, Vadim Redkin, a former drummer in a Soviet-era boy band was also arrested, along with another aide, Vladimir Vedernikov. Torop lost his job as a traffic officer in 1989. He claims to have experienced an ‘awakening’ in August 1990, as the Soviet regime began to collapse. He founded the movement known as the Church of the Last Testament. After this he began sermonising in and around his hometown and soon, with a handful of newly converted followers by his side, he retreated to the ancient Taiga and founded an entirely new world.
After rejecting his first wife, Torop married a 19-year-old who was living with him since she was seven. He has six children from both marriages.
His followers aim to live in harmony with nature—they practice agriculture without any modern technology. The Visarionists, or his followers, abstain from smoking and drinking, too.
The cult is said to have several followers, including professionals in Russia and pilgrims from abroad. Veganism is enforced in the religion that draws tenets and rites from Orthodox Christianity and other environmental edicts. While the Orthodox Church in Russia has criticised the cult, it has remained unbothered so far.
