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Russian authorities have launched a special operation to arrest a former traffic policeman who claims to be the reincarnation of Jesus and has established a sect deep in Siberia for three decades.
Helicopters and armed police raided the communities governed by Sergei Torop, known to his followers as Bissarion, and arrested the leader and two of his accomplices.
Russia’s Investigative Committee has said he will be charged with establishing an illegal religious organization, accusing his sect of embezzling money from his followers and subjecting them to emotional abuse.
Helicopters and masked men
The 59-year-old, who has long gray hair and a beard, was herded by masked soldiers in a helicopter. The operation involved agents from the Russian security service FSB, as well as the police and other services.
Vadim Redkin, a former drummer in a Soviet-era youth band known as Bessarion’s right-hand man, was also arrested along with another accomplice, Vladimir Vedernikov. 
Torop, who lost his job as a traffic policeman in 1989, claimed to have experienced the “awakening” when the Soviet Union began to collapse. In 1991 he founded a movement now known as the Church of the Last Testament.
Several thousand of his followers live in a series of isolated villages in Siberia’s Krasnoyarsk region. Members of the sect include professionals from all over Russia, as well as pilgrims from abroad.
“I am not God. And it is wrong to treat Jesus as God. But I am the living word of God the Father.” Everything God wants to say, He says it through me, “Bissarion told The Guardian in 2002.
Russian media reported that in the original ideology of the sect, Bessarion claimed that Jesus was watching people while orbiting close to earth, while the Virgin Mary “rules Russia.” Later, however, he claimed to be Jesus himself. 
His parish mixes some rituals of the Orthodox Christian Church with provisions for the environment and a number of other rules. Veganism is mandatory, while money is prohibited within the parish. His followers wear simple clothes and count the years from 1961, the year of Bessarion’s birth. Christmas has been replaced by a celebration on January 14, his birthday.
It is not known what will happen to his followers now that their leader has been arrested, nor is it clear why the authorities have decided to act now to stop him. The official Russian Orthodox Church has long condemned the group, but authorities have not been particularly concerned. Some Russian media reported that the community was embroiled in a dispute over local business interests.
Source: www.theguardian.com
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