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Church Of The Last Testament (Vissarion / Sergei Torop; Siberia)

rynner2

rynner2

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Thousands of pilgrims have converged on the hamlet of Petropavlovka, deep in the Siberian tundra, to hear today's annual sermon by a 41-year-old former traffic policeman who they believe to be Jesus.

Sergei Torop, known to his followers as Vissarion, has descended on horseback for the occasion from the mountain log cabin that he shares with his wife and six children, 4,000ft above Petropavlovka in the republic of Khakassia, near the Siberian-Mongolian border.

Dressed in flowing red velvet robes and sporting long dark hair, Vissarion has appeared before his growing band of followers every year on the anniversary of his revelation in 1989 that he was Christ returned.

More than 4,000 followers have travelled from all over the former Soviet Union, and some as far away as Australia, to listen to his sermon and be baptised in the river that runs by Petropavlovka.
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(Full Story)
 
The link above no longer works, but Vissarion is still going strong:

Jesus of Siberia: The Russian ex-traffic policeman who claims he is the son of God
By Niall Firth
Last updated at 2:32 PM on 29th August 2009

The beard and long hair are both present and correct.

And with his flowing linen robes and beatific smile he certainly does a fine impression of a holy man.

But to his believers in this remote corner of Siberia, Sergei Torop, a former traffic policeman, is the literal reincarnation of none other than Jesus Christ.

Torop, 48, is the spiritual leader of at least 5,000 devoted followers, among them intellectuals, artists and professionals who flock to worship him in the small isolated village of Petropavlovka - more than 2000 miles from Moscow.

Torop was ‘reborn’ as ‘Vissarion’ in 1991 just as Russia was facing a crisis of confidence following the collapse of the iron curtain.

He is just the latest example of Russia’s predilection for 'personality cults' - a national obsession that leads back all the way to the days of Rasputin.

Both Lenin and Stalin tapped into the Russian people’s eagerness to embrace powerful figures and actively fostered the almost religious fervour with which they were worshipped.

After time spent in the Army, Torop had been working as a traffic policeman on the night shift in the small Siberia town of Minusinsk until he was made unemployed.
Suddenly something ‘awoke’ inside him, he says, and he instantly knew that he was the second coming of Christ - 2,000 years after he was first crucified.

For thousands of followers, Vissarion is no less than the second coming of Jesus of Nazareth, reincarnated 2,000 years after his crucifixion, deep in the Siberian wilderness
He says he realised that God had sent him to Earth to teach mankind about the evils of war and the havoc we were wreaking on the environment.
With Christmas abolished his followers mark the day of his first sermon on August 18 as their special feast day.
Time in the community is measured by Vissarion’s life and so as he is 48 years old his Church is now living in year 49.

His followers, who have given up their lives to follow him, are strict vegans and are banned from smoking and drinking or handling money.

Around 300 of them live in wooden huts in the village that has grown up around his church and which does not appear on any maps.

Many thousands more have made their homes in the small villages that surround Petropavlovka and survive the vicious Siberian winters so that they can be close to their Messiah.

On a mountain close by their village a large bell tolls three times a day so the followers know when they should break off from their back-breaking work to kneel and pray.

Vissarion himself whiles away his days painting in his chalet where he lives with his wife and six children - one of whom he adopted from a single mother in the commune.

But critics in Russia have accused him of fleecing his loyal community of followers for personal gain.

In recent years he has travelled to France, Italy and Holland to 'convert' new followers although he claims that his visits were sponsored by his hosts and that his Church makes no money.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldne ... z0PfBVIpJV
 
rynner2 said:
After time spent in the Army, Torop had been working as a traffic policeman on the night shift in the small Siberia town of Minusinsk until he was made unemployed.
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...and there you have it. There can't be many employment options in a remote village in Siberia.
Call me an old cynic, etc.
 
Mythopoeika said:
rynner2 said:
After time spent in the Army, Torop had been working as a traffic policeman on the night shift in the small Siberia town of Minusinsk until he was made unemployed.
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...and there you have it. There can't be many employment options in a remote village in Siberia.
Call me an old cynic, etc.
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You are an old cynic etc.
 
We've got huge numbers of unemployed in the UK now

- but, very sadly, no reincarnations of Jesus.

If it really is a good career move, you might expect one or two, surely?

But I guess the crucifixion thing is a bit of a turn-off...

Perhaps the Brit unemployed are just wimps... :twisted:
 
rynner2 said:
We've got huge numbers of unemployed in the UK now

- but, very sadly, no reincarnations of Jesus.

If it really is a good career move, you might expect one or two, surely?

But I guess the crucifixion thing is a bit of a turn-off...

Perhaps the Brit unemployed are just wimps... :twisted:
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Maybe the English just listen too much to "Jerusalem" or read the Daily Mail too much?

After all, if one is persuaded to believe one is already God's representative on earth - on either a national or personal level - then one would be by definition immune to any subsequent claims no?
 
Do we really need another David Icke or David Shayler?
 
gncxx said:
Do we really need another David Icke or David Shayler?
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No, but neither of them have achieved much of a following.

Vissarion has been going for years now, and has 5,000 followers, it seems.

I doubt he'd recruit me as a follower, however, but he must have some exceptional charisma. And that is at the root of many religions and cults.
 
He seems to have the right beard. Must be Jesus. :)
 
Still, a genuine second coming - or an unequivocal UFO landing, for that matter - might bloody well wake us up to some common sense before it is too late. Can't see it happening though. If there is a God, he's most probably thinking something along the lines of 'well you made your bed, now lie in it'.

What galls me is that it is clearly not impossible to make the world - even an industrialised world - quite a pleasant place. The population hasn't exploded to the point where, if we put our minds to it, there couldn't be a reasonable provision of health care, food and housing, energy and security for everyone.

I guess its the power paradox - the more power people get the more unsuited they usually are to wield it. And, I suppose, the more determined to hang on to it. We all talk quite sensibly on here, but make any of us supreme ruler of anywhere and I suspect it would all go horribly wrong.
 
Vissarion, Vadim & Vladimir arrested.

The leader of a prominent religious sect has been arrested in a remote part of Siberia by the Russian security forces, police say.

Sergei Torop, who is known to his followers as Vissarion, founded the Church of the Last Testament in Siberia's Krasnoyarsk region in 1991. He was arrested along with two other leaders of the group. They stand accused of extorting money and causing physical and psychological harm to their followers. Mr Torop, Vadim Redkin and Vladimir Vedernikov are suspected of "establishing a religious association whose activities involve violence against individuals and of inflicting grievous bodily harm to two or more people," a spokeswoman for Russia's Investigations Committee said. ...

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-54249304
 
Cult leader who claims he is Jesus arrested

A former traffic policeman who claims to be the reincarnation of Jesus has been arrested by Russian security services following a raid on his commune in the Siberian wilderness.

Prominent mystic Sergei Torop founded the Church of the Last Testament shortly before the break-up of the Soviet Union in 1991.

He amassed thousands of followers after preaching that the end of the world was imminent and only he and his believers would survive.

Mr Torop, Vadim Redkin and Vladimir Vedernikov are suspected of ‘establishing a religious association whose activities involve violence against individuals and of inflicting grievous bodily harm to two or more people,’ a spokeswoman for Russia’s Investigations Committee said.

Believers in the teachings of Mr Torop are no allowed to consume meat, coffee, tea, sugar, yeast bread and wheat products, according to BBC Russia.

The group combines elements of the Russian Orthodox Church with themes of reincarnation, as well as preparations for the apocalypse, according to a report in The New Yorker magazine.
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