Deep in a remote corner of Siberia, a group of masked men swarmed the City of the Sun, a deeply religious settlement in the Krasnoyarsk region.
The Russian security forces had arrived in September 2020 to arrest the so-called Jesus of Siberia, a former traffic policeman known as ‘Vissarion’ who some viewed as the reincarnation of Christ. The religious leader, whose real name is Sergei Torop, was accused of extorting money and causing physical and psychological harm to his many of followers, some 10,000 worldwide.
On Monday, nearly five years later, Torop’s stint as a cult leader came to an end when he was convicted in a Siberian court and sentenced to 12 years in a maximum-security prison camp, along with two other sect leaders, Vladimir Vedernikov and Vadim Redkin.
The 64-year-old bearded and long-haired mystic, who led the Church of the Last Testament, claimed that he had been “reborn” to convey god’s word to the world. Many of his devotees flocked to the settlement known as ‘Abode of Dawn’ or ‘Sun City’, soaking in Torop’s teachings of reincarnation, veganism, and harmonious human relations.
“It’s all very complicated,” he explained to a reporter for The Guardian in 2002. “But to keep things simple, yes, I am Jesus Christ. 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.”
Torop told his followers not to eat meat, smoke, drink alcohol or swear – and to stop using money. They would often hold prayers in his honour, looking up to his large hilltop residence in the City of the Sun.
But it was a darker, hidden side to life in Vissarion’s commune that led to his arrest.
His apparent re-birth was followed by decades of psychological manipulation of his followers, exploiting them for labour and money from 1991 to 2020. Torop exerted control over his followers, prosecutors said, inflicting “moral harm” on 16 people, leaving six with “serious health problems”.
“There were these ridiculous situations when adults and children died because they didn’t receive medical assistance,” Elena Melnikova, one of at least eight people who testified against Vissarion and his lieutenants in the year after his arrest, told the BBC.
An anti-medical commandment was one of a number of regulations imposed by Vissarion which proved to be harmful to his followers. “Know thyself. From now on, the flesh must heal itself. In most cases, illness is a punishment for the inability to keep one’s flesh in harmony with nature,” Ms Melnikova said, recalling his teachings.
Community leaders would beg for money for the community, she said. In some cases, people donated all of their funds, admitted Alexander Staroveroc, who acts as a press secretary for the City of the Sun.
Along with Vedernikov and Redkin – jailed for 11 and 12 years respectively – Torop denied all wrongdoing, and it is unclear whether they will appeal their sentences. After their conviction, the court also awarded 45 million rubles (£417,000) in damages to the victims.
Torop’s journey as a spiritual leader began when he was 29 in 1990, the year he claimed he was reborn as Vissarion, claiming to be a returned Jesus Christ.
Born in 1961 in the city of Krasnodar, which was then the Soviet Union, Torop’s life until his turn to religion was a tale of toil. Stints in the Red Army, on building sites, in factories, and as a traffic policeman, ultimately led to bitter disappointment when he was made redundant from his latest role after five years of service.
As he embarked on a spiritual path following his redundancy, Torop began drawing from elements of various religions: Russian Orthodox Church, Buddhism, and apocalypticism. He embraced veganism and began to adopt collectivist views and ecological values.
It would be just two years before he founded the Church of the Last Testament in Krasnoyarsk, Siberia, in just months before the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991. The end of the world, Torop told his early followers, was imminent. Only those who observed his strict teachings would be saved.
“He radiates incredible love,” 57-year-old Hermann told The Guardian. “I met Vissarion last August. He told me we had to follow two laws. It was like an electric shock, like bells ringing.”
Denis, a 21-year-old Australian, said: “No doubt about it, mate. Definitely the Son of God.”
An entire new calendar was adopted based around moments in Vissarion’s life: Christmas was replaced by a feast day on Vissarion’s birthday, 14 January, while another feast day on August 18 was the largest, and originated from his first sermon in 1991.
But following decades of worship of a self-professed messiah, his thousands of followers remaining in the remote corner of SIberia now live without their spiritual teacher. He is not due to be released until he is 76 years old.
