Who is Sergei Torop, cult leader claiming to be reincarnation of Jesus arrested in Russia?

Team Udayavani, Sep 24, 2020, 4:00 PM IST

Recently, Russia arrested a Siberian cult leader who claims to be the reincarnation of Jesus, along with his top aides, in an operation involving armed troops and aircraft.

According to The Guardian, Helicopters and armed officers stormed communities run by Sergei Torop, known to his followers as Vissarion, and arrested him and two of his aides.

Russia’s investigative committee said it would charge him with organising an illegal religious organisation, alleging that the cult extorted money from followers and subjected them to emotional abuse

As reported by Indian Express, Sergey Anatolyevitch Torop was born at Krasnodar in southern Russia in January 1961. Sergey worked in the Soviet army, before settling down at Minusinsk, where he worked as a traffic officer.

In 1989, he lost his job and a year later he claimed to have had a mystical revelation, and that he was born as Vissarion, or the reincarnated Christ. In 1991 he founded a movement now known as the Church of the Last Testament.

Torop became popular as Vissarion after the fall of the Soviet Union. It was at that time that he established his community that eventually was identified as a cult.

He spent his time in a comfortable chalet and claimed to be Jesus Christ and wrote a 10-volume ‘sequel to the Bible’

Torop and thousands of followers established a colony in a remote part of Siberia, where they lived for roughly three decades before the government operation