He was once a humble traffic cop but now he’s Jesus Christ.
Sergei Torop’s followers in a remote corner of Siberia believe he is the literal reincarnation of the son of God.
Sporting wispy hair, a white cloak and sandals over his socks, the bearded 56-year-old calls himself Vissarion and says he’s the founder of the Church of the Last Testament.
Messiah: Sergei Torop’s followers in a remote corner of Siberia believe he is the literal reincarnation of the son of God
Sporting wispy hair, a white cloak and sandals over his socks, the bearded 56-year-old calls himself Vissarion and says he’s the founder of the Church of the Last Testament
The former Red Army soldier, who claims he was ‘reborn’ in 1991, is now the spiritual leader of at least 5,000 devoted followers small isolated village of Petropavlovka – more than 2,000 miles from Moscow.
His believers, 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.
The former Red Army soldier, who claims he was ‘reborn’ in 1991, is now the spiritual leader of at least 5,000 devoted followers
His believers, who have given up their lives to follow him, are strict vegans and are banned from smoking and drinking or handling money
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.
The BBC’s Simon Reeve met Vissarion for a show aired tonight. One of his followers told Reeve: ‘We have a school of noble maidens here. We’re preparing girls to become future wives, future brides for worthy men.
‘She has to understand not to rise above the man, not to be proud of her independence but to be shy, inconspicuous and weak.’
Reeve calls the cult ‘scary stuff,’ adding: ‘I genuinely felt like I should be calling social services. They’re teaching Vissarion’s ten-volume sequel to The Bible.’
Vissarion is an example of Russia’s predilection for ‘personality cults’ – which lead back to the days of Rasputin, the mystic who befriended Tsar Nicholas II.
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.
Around 300 of Torop’s believers live in wooden huts in the village that has grown up around his church and which does not appear on any maps
After time spent in the Army, Torop had been working as a traffic policemanon 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.
He says he realised that God had sent him to Earth to teach mankindabout the evils of war and the havoc we were wreaking on theenvironment.
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 56 years old his Church is now living in year 57.
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.
Vissarion is an example of Russia’s predilection for ‘personality cults’ – an obsession that leads back to the days of Rasputin