Judgment Day for "Jesus from Siberia": why the leader of the "Church of the Last Testament" Sergei Torop was arrested

Armed security forces, accompanied by helicopters, broke into the territory of a religious community in the Siberian wilderness. Employees of the Russian security service detained the leader of the sect, who proclaimed himself Jesus, Sergei Torop, and his entourage.

About four thousand devoted followers of the sectarian lived in a commune isolated from the world. The cult has existed for 30 years, and only recently it was possible to collect evidence of its illegal activities and bring the organizers to justice.Sergey Torop is a former traffic police officer. He founded the Church of the Last Testament movement in Siberia in the 90s. The religious leader was detained only the other day.

Sergey Torop was an ordinary traffic cop from Minusinsk. Suddenly, in 1989, a man received a revelation that he was the son of God. The 29-year-old Russian had an idea right after he was fired from his job, and the country was on the verge of collapse. The man began to call himself Jesus Christ. He claimed that God himself spoke through his mouth.

The cult leader founded the "Church of the Last Testament" in 1991. Four years later, he and his followers moved to the Siberian wilderness in the Kuraginsky district, where he founded the so-called City of the Sun. The community has grown to 40 settlements around Kuragino, Imissky, Petropavlovsk and Cheremshanka.

About four thousand people lived here in wooden huts and wore white clothes. In total, there are 10,000 followers who are deeply devoted to Vissarion. Sectarians begin the chronology since 1961, when Sergei Torop was born, and the main holiday is celebrated on January 14, his birthday. The bell was rung three times daily in the City of the Sun. At this time, all members of the community had to kneel and pray.

It is difficult to understand why so many people from all over the world abandoned their usual life and went into the dense taiga. Some followers of the cult in Torop's teachings were attracted by the idea of a communal lifestyle after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Others joined the church because they wanted to live away from society, in the mountains, abandoning the benefits of civilization.

Sergey claimed that he could cure AIDS and cancer with a touch of his hand. Members of the cult believed in aliens, and some of them even claimed to have seen UFOs themselves. Torop's teaching was a bit like Orthodoxy, but at the same time there were elements of neo-Paganism and Eastern teachings refracted through Roerichianism. One of the central themes was environmental protection. Followers expected the coming of the apocalypse in the near future. All the beliefs and views of Vissarion were collected in the book "The Last Testament", reminiscent of the biblical New Testament.

Despite his modest lifestyle, Torop traveled all over the world, converting new adherents to his teaching. He denied accusations that he was using followers' money.

In February 2020, the police raided the Monastery of Dawn to find evidence of sexual violence and corruption that reigned in the community.

The cult leaders said that with the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic, their teachings became even more popular. Many new followers from Europe, South America and the USA joined the cult.

In the end, Sergei Hastily met his own Doomsday: he was handcuffed. The cult leader was detained and taken away by helicopter by armed security forces. The founder of the "Church of the Last Testament" is scheduled to be charged with committing crimes under Part 1 of Article 239, paragraphs "a", "b" of Part 3 of Article 111 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (creation of a religious association whose activities involve violence against citizens, causing serious harm to two or more persons).

Humanity is constantly waiting for the end of the world. Some people become so obsessed with the idea of Doomsday that they spend their whole lives waiting for this fateful moment. The sects that united such madmen spread all over the world. The terrible rules that guided their leaders approved of violence, pedophilia and even murder.