Former traffic officer Sergei Torop, AKA Vissarion, arrested in a special operation in Siberia.

A Siberian messianic cult leader and his deputies have been detained at one of their communes on accusations of using followers’ money and psychological violence to inflict harm, Russia’s Investigative Committee said Tuesday.

Armed agents were filmed storming the Church of the Last Testament’s compound in a southern district of the Krasnoyarsk region. The agents can be seen placing its leader Vissarion Christ the Teacher, whose followers believe that he is the reincarnation of Jesus of Nazareth, inside one of several helicopters deployed in the raid.

“Fifty police vans, 50 buses, an ambulance and medical workers are driving over here,” the Tayga.info news website quoted local resident Alexander Staroverov, who witnessed the early-morning raid, as saying on social media.

Investigative Committee and Federal Security Service (FSB) agents detained Vissarion, a former policeman whose secular name is Sergei Torop, as well as two of his deputies.

The Investigative Committee said that the cult’s leaders “used its members’ money and psychological violence” against them, causing “serious harm” to some members’ health. Investigators intend to charge them with creating a religious association that uses violence, the Investigative Committee’s statement said.

The Church of the Last Testament reported raids and interrogations in February in connection with a fraud investigation into a school attended by its members’ children, according to Interfax.

Vissarion’s deputy Vadim Redkin told The Moscow Times at the height of Russia’s coronavirus outbreak this spring that the Church of the Last Testament’s membership applications have tripled since the start of the pandemic.

The Investigative Committee said that Redkin and Vladimir Vedyornikov were the two Vissarion deputies detained in Tuesday’s raid.

Vissarion founded his movement in the early 1990s, filling an ideological void after the fall of the Soviet Union. About 4,000 so-called “Vissarionites” live in 20 rural settlements in southern Siberia, with the most devoted group of around 300 living on top of a remote hill they call the Abode of Dawn.

The cult deepened its physical isolation from the rest of Russia after the start of the coronavirus pandemic, closing its communes off to outsiders.

Torop, 59, with long grey hair and a beard, was led by masked troops to a helicopter. The operation involved agents from Russia’s FSB security service as well as police and other agencies. Vadim Redkin, a former drummer in a Soviet-era boyband who is known as Vissarion’s right-hand man, was also arrested, along with another aide, Vladimir Vedernikov.

Torop, who lost his job as a traffic officer in 1989, claimed he experienced an “awakening” as the Soviet regime began to collapse. In 1991 he founded a movement now known as the Church of the Last Testament.

Several thousand followers live in a series of remote hamlets in the Krasnoyarsk region in Siberia. Converts to the cult have included professionals from across Russia as well as pilgrims from abroad.

“I am not God. And it is a mistake to see Jesus as God. But I am the living word of God the father. Everything that God wants to say, he says through me,” Vissarion told the Guardian in 2002.

Russian media reported that in the original ideology of the cult, Vissarion claimed Jesus was watching over people from an orbit close to Earth, and the Virgin Mary was “running Russia”, but later he declared himself to be Jesus.

His commune mixes a selection of rites drawn from Orthodox Christianity with environmental edicts and a series of other rules. Veganism is enforced and monetary exchange is banned inside the commune. Followers wear austere clothing and count years starting from 1961, the year of Vissarion’s birth, while Christmas has been replaced by a feast day on 14 January, his birthday.

It is not clear what will happen to the disciples now that their leader has been arrested, nor is it clear why authorities decided to move now. The official Russian Orthodox church has long condemned the group but officials have largely left the devotees alone. Some Russian media outlets reported that the community had become involved in a dispute with local business interests.

SOURCE: GISTBABA

Him no even resemble Jesus

Wow

I'm just laughing hysterically

You know as em dey go

if he comes to nigeria he'll be worshipped

ghettowriter:
Him no even resemble Jesus

nobody knows how Jesus look

the difference is clear

ghettowriter:
Him no even resemble Jesus

do you know Jesus

Jones4190:

do you know Jesus

Sheyy you know you got my drift but you're forming intelligent?

ghettowriter:


Sheyy you know you got my drift but you're forming intelligent?

have you ever meet jesus?

Jones4190:

have you ever meet jesus?

Not again, , , no sir

ghettowriter:



Not again, , , no sir

the picture you people called and tag it the picture of jesus is the one of Cesare Borgia, son of Pope_Alexander VI " prove that the early pope do married"

im telling you bro. He'll be worshipped as he's arrested for collecting monies from his congregation Nigeria will shout foul. Touch not my anoited and do my prophets no harm LOL. Nigeria eih, we have a long way

OruExpress:
if he comes to nigeria he'll be worshipped

Funny Enough People Av Already Start Spreading Their Clothes 4 Him To Walk On. He Has Now Being Arrested. Soon He Shall Be Waiting 4 His Trial In Pilate's Court B4 He Shall Be Crucified.

Lol This one no fit die for anybody ooo lol

Truvel:
Funny Enough People Av Already Start Spreading Their Clothes 4 Him To Walk On. He Has Now Being Arrested. Soon He Shall Be Waiting 4 His Trial In Pilate's Court B4 He Shall Be Crucified.

30 years doing this.
Why arrest now

He started collecting money from Russians and it's against the Russian law to collect money from Russians in the name of religion. Except for charity purposes. He was arrested only to expalin what he did with the monies he collected. definitley will be charged for money laundering.

K254725:
30 years doing this.
Why arrest now

Austeen007:
He started collecting money from Russians and it's against the Russian law to collect money from Russians in the name of religion. Except for charity purposes. He was arrested only to expalin what he did with the monies he collected. definitley will be charged for money laundering.

Oh

ghettowriter:
Him no even resemble Jesus

Do you know how Jesus looks like?

Righteousness89 pls come and say something

Nice question. You know many of us have a perception of what jesus looks like from the movies we have seen while we are kids. But the truth is tht no one knows how jesus looks

NiklauseFred:


Do you know how Jesus looks like?

Righteousness89 pls come and say something

LMAO
Idiotic white Jesus scammers.

this is definitely the end time

Jesus was not fat. that man is looking like fat Jesus

This is who this idiot and you foolish Christians imitate or follow.

SweepingBroom:
Jesus was not fat. that man is looking like fat Jesus

How do you know that? Have you seen his picture?

Judgement will pursue those who hear the truth but follow lies.

Many in Africa will disagree with you, that's how deep the poison has eaten deep into africa. Expecially Nigerians. They do not want unlearn.

donnie:
Judgement will pursue those who hear the truth but follow lies.

Austeen007:
Many in Africa will disagree with you, that's how deep the poison has eaten deep into africa. Expecially Nigerians. They do not want unlearn.

Sad. But the things that will happen (have already started but they turn blind eye) will force many to ask questions that their pastors and priests cannot answer.