The Russian Jesus
A while back a reader referenced an interesting video about a Russian guy [Vissarion] who claims to be Jesus reincarnated. Here is a LINK
There are three things that make him interesting.
[1] He actually has a following, about 5,000 dedicated disciples. [2] He is gathering his people in a plot of land and building a community. [3] Even though he seems to exercise the authority of the beast he appears to have good intentions to prepare a people for calamities to come. [4] He has taken a desolate area in Siberia and turned it in to a beautiful and productive food producing community. Not quite a Garden of Eden but very nice considering the circumstances.
DK made the prediction that a beautiful new religion would come out of Russia so I always check out any movement that seems to be afoot there. This group, despite its faults, is a possibility.
That said here are some of the negatives.
[1] A beastly control over peoples lives. Inhabitants have to rise at a certain hour. Do prayers and then go to work. Their diet is regulated and they must be vegetarians. They feel the need to ask their guru for permission for all kinds of mundane things. They basically give up most worldly things.
[2] Most sell everything they have and give it to the guru and if they leave it appears they get no money back. I’m not positive of this but indications point in this direction.
[3] Though he claims to be Jesus he is not much like him. He performs no miracles and does not teach like him in profound words and parables. I believe that he really thinks he is Jesus but do not believe he is.
Here are some comments I pulled off the internet:
[His book] was extremely detailed: it contained God’s opinion on whether or not you should always wipe your feet when coming indoors, for example. The community also aimed to return to 18th century levels of technology, in spite of their enthusiastic embrace of the Internet and mobile phones- a contradiction surely, but then what faith is without contradictions?
The next day however my grudging admiration received a jolt when I attended an open air meeting between Vissarion and the villagers. I was simply stunned by the banality of their moral dilemmas: they wanted to know what brands of washing powder were acceptable to God, and whether it was okay to laugh at dirty jokes. There was nothing dangerous or surprising in his answers, but that was the problem. LINK
If there was anything interesting to learn from the cult, it wasn’t coming from their Messiah. It was certainly intriguing to see the hybrid religion Vissarion had created for his followers, but we didn’t learn much about that from his on-screen appearances. It’s a strange mixture of old-fashioned Christianity and new-age paganism, with lots of dancing and singing in circles, which at time made parts of the documentary look like scenes from the Wicker Man [albeit without the sex and human sacrifice]. To Vissarion’s followers, Earth is a Gaia-like, sentient organism that man has brought to the brink of ruin, and they’re pulling it back in their own small way through their subsistence farming and veganism. LINK
See another video at this LINK:
Reader: He looks like another Chris Nemelka!
JJ I noticed that resemblance also. He seems to be a nicer guy though.
2026 Update from Google:
Vissarion (whose real name is Sergei Torop) is no longer active as a public religious leader. [1, 2, 3]
Following a dramatic arrest by Russian federal authorities in September 2020, his movement came to an official end when a court in Novosibirsk sentenced him to 12 years in a maximum-security prison camp. [1, 2, 3]
Current Status and Jailing
- The Conviction: The Siberian court found Torop and his top aides guilty of running a coercive organization that caused physical and psychological trauma to its members, violated citizens’ civil rights, and defrauded followers out of large sums of money. [1, 2]
- Financial Penalties: The court ordered Torop and his associates to pay 45 million rubles (over $500,000) in moral and physical damages to their victims. [1, 2]
- Movement Liquidated: His religious organization, the Church of the Last Testament, was officially liquidated by Russian court order. His isolated commune in the Siberian wilderness—known as the “City of the Sun”—was effectively dismantled by authorities. [1, 2, 3]
Background of the Cult
Before his arrest, the former traffic police officer had spent nearly three decades operating one of Russia’s most prominent religious sects. After claiming to experience a “spiritual awakening” in 1990, he declared himself the second coming of Jesus Christ. He attracted roughly 10,000 global followers to a remote pocket of the Siberian Taiga. The commune enforced strict veganism, banned monetary exchange internally, and mandated that followers wear austere clothing and measure time beginning from Torop’s birth year (1961).
Are there still active followers?
Yes, thousands of Vissarion’s followers remain active and dedicated to his teachings, even though the Church of the Last Testament has been legally liquidated and its leadership imprisoned. [1, 2]
While the Russian government effectively dismantled the formal, centralized structure of the cult, they could not easily erase the deeply embedded community built over three decades. [1]
The Current Reality of the Followers
- Refusal to Disperse: An estimated 4,000 to 5,000 devoted followers still reside in the remote Krasnoyarsk region of Siberia. While the high-security core compound—the “Abode of Dawn”—was heavily targeted by authorities, disciples continue to live across a network of roughly 40 isolated, self-built eco-villages in the Taiga. [1, 2, 3]
- Martyrdom Belief: Rather than shattering the faith of his disciples, Vissarion’s arrest and subsequent 12-year prison sentence have largely been interpreted by his followers as a prophesied test or “martyrdom”. Many view the Russian government’s crackdown as unjust persecution, which has only solidified their religious convictions. [1]
- Continued Practice: Devotees still quietly adhere to Vissarion’s strict lifestyle mandates. They practice strict veganism, ban alcohol and tobacco, and maintain a highly sustainable, agrarian lifestyle cut off from mainstream Russian society. [1, 2, 3]
- Global Underground Devotion: Beyond the Siberian Taiga, an estimated 6,000 peripheral followers remain scattered worldwide (primarily in Western Europe and former Soviet states). They continue to study Vissarion’s multi-volume religious texts, known as the Last Testament, in private circles. [1, 2]
To believe with certainty, we must begin with doubting. – Stanislaus
April 20, 2013
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