"They used psychological violence": leaders of an organization that had been operating since Soviet times were detained in Siberia

The Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation, in the course of a joint special operation with the FSB and the Ministry of Internal Affairs, detained in the Krasnoyarsk Territory the leaders of the Church of the Last Testament, a religious organization operating in the region since the early 1990s. 

Helicopters, "jammer", detentions

As reported on the website of the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation, the criminal case on the fact of "illegal activities of the Kuraginsky local religious organization" Church of the Last Testament "is being investigated by the Main Investigation Department (GSO) of the department.

According to the investigation, detained Sergei Torop, Vadim Redkin and Vladimir Vedernikov have been leading the Church of the Last Testament since 1991.

The head of the organization, Torop, called himself the Son of God "Christ" under the name Vissarion.

According to the Investigative Committee, in order to generate income from religious activity, they attracted funds from citizens, and also used psychological violence against them, as a result of which, as a result of prolonged exposure, some of the followers of the religious organization suffered serious harm to their health.

The detainees are planned to be charged with committing crimes under Part 1 of Art.

239, pp.

"A", "b" part 3 of Art.

111 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (creation of a religious association, the activities of which are associated with violence against citizens, causing grievous bodily harm to two or more persons).

The leaders of the sect were taken by helicopter to Novosibirsk, where the court on Wednesday will choose a preventive measure.

Eyewitnesses also reported on a large-scale interdepartmental special operation involving several helicopters that unfolded in the Krasnoyarsk outback on Tuesday morning.

“Guys, 50 paddy wagons and 50 buses are coming to us.

There are medical workers there ... Therefore, it is not clear how it will continue.

The development of events may be different, ”one of the members of the organization, Alexander Staroverov, said on his Facebook.

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Searches of the community leaders found large quantities of weapons and alcohol.

 “We have no official data on what is happening now.

We do not know where our clients are, we do not know what they are accused of.

There is no connection with people who are in the community.

A jammer came there and cut off the Internet and cellular communications.

I associate this situation with the previously initiated case under Article 239 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation and the arrival of REN-TV correspondents on August 23, who introduced themselves as individuals, and then grabbed the microphone and said that they were holding a press conference.

They invaded the religious rite, made a scandal, then called the police and the UK, who filed a case for obstructing the activities of journalists.

Then they had a report, and my clients started having these problems.

This community has followers all over the world, "Ivan Khoroshev, a lawyer for the organization, commented on RT events on Tuesday.

In August, the community members had a conflict with the journalists of the REN-TV channel, who, after a complaint from Olga Klimova, a former parishioner of the Church, came to shoot a report in the City of the Sun - a village built by Vissarion and his followers on Lake Tiberkul, where the headquarters is organizations.

As a result, after the attack of the followers of Vissarion on the journalist of the TV channel Alexander Litomin, a criminal case was opened under Art.

144 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation "Obstruction of the legitimate professional activities of journalists."

Law enforcement agencies were actively interested in Vissarion, including after Klimova's revelations.

According to her, she was an adherent of the Church for 26 years, and gave the leaders of the sect money from the sale of her Moscow apartment.

Klimova told reporters that during his stay in the Church of the Last Testament, her now grown-up son received a disability due to mental illness.

At the same time, judging by the article of the criminal case, Klimova and her son are far from the only victims of the sectarian organization.

“The model was simple - he is God and rules everything”

Former parishioner Denis Korobkov spoke about the sad experience of his stay in Vissarion's organization and the customs of RT.

“He headed this movement, as he was a gifted person, but did not find himself applying in the social life of society.

Then he began to develop his vain ideas in the community and improve his everyday life at the expense of others.

He believed that he had a divine mission.

Psychological violence was used with the help of invented certain systems.

Obligatory obedience was developed.

The people who came were united in collectives - "United Families".

The main rule was submission to the will of Vissarion, ”he said.

According to him, if a house was to be built, Vissarion “shouted through the villages,” and families had to supply workers.

“All this was done for free, no one, of course, took into account their interests, the opportunity to feed their own families was also not taken into account.

If people did not go to work, then they began to be excluded from the team.

In the taiga, this threat is very serious.

The pressure from the team began, they could force such people to sell plots, houses.

In recent years, everyone had to take tithes, ”he said.

According to him, Vissarion frightened his followers with the "end of the world", talking about the upcoming arrival of the comet.

“Before that, you need to unite and dump money.

In the "City of the Sun", many had to sell property and buy oats or buckwheat in case of the apocalypse.

All this was done without fail or a person was evicted from the city.

In general, no one was forcibly kept in the city, but such a psychological atmosphere was created that a person began to think that if he left the city, he would die.

It was hammered in that if a person does not fulfill the will of Vissarion, he will die.

No one even needed to be forced to give money, everything was done voluntarily.

The security service arose later - there were shepherds, the guys trained in hand-to-hand combat, throwing knives.

After I left, I heard that firearms were also being purchased there.

Vissarion always went with a guard of several people, "Korobkov said.

According to him, the head of the organization tried to maintain good relations with the local authorities by giving them gifts.

In addition, the residents of the "City of the Sun" were not allowed to go to their relatives at will - first they had to get permission from Vissarion.

At the same time, the departure could be prohibited, motivated by the fact that "a person must clean the paths from snow, build a house for Vissarion or do other work."

The "city of the sun" eventually became a city of servants, as Vissarion called it, that is, a city of attendants.

The model was simple - he is God and rules everything.

There was a rule that a person could only leave for two months to earn money for his family.

The rest of the time I had to work for the good of the city, ”he said.

According to the interlocutor of RT, Vissarion did nothing and he sent all his decrees through his deputies - Vadim Redkin and Vladimir Vedernikov.

“At any moment he could say that they were wrong, but I didn’t say anything like that,” Korobkov said.

He recalls: if in the early 90s the organization spoke about the value of family life, then over the years he began to notice that this law easily changes if Vissarion wants something different.

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“A moment has ripened in his family when he had not even a woman, but a girl.

His family then fell apart, and he began to talk about the fact that love should be free.

After that, anarchy began in the community - people began to get divorced.

Then he said that all women should tell their husbands about all their infidelities.

After that, a friend of mine knocked out four of his wife's teeth.

Then he began to say that love triangles are possible, that threesome sex is possible.

As a result, his wife left Vissarion, and he married a girl who was “helping” him, that is, essentially a servant.

I can't say if she was an adult at all.

I decided to leave the organization when I began to notice his vanity in Vissarion.

I pulled myself out of there by the hair and then recovered for a very long time, "the interlocutor of RT summed up.

Unfulfilled apocalypse

Sergey Torop was born in 1961 in the Krasnodar Territory.

Soon after his parents divorced, he and his mother moved to the Krasnoyarsk Territory, where, as a result, together with his stepfather and half-sister, he settled in Minusinsk.

He served in a construction battalion on the territory of Mongolia, after which he worked for a short time as a mechanic, electrician, mystic artist, physical education teacher at school.

In addition, Torop served in the police.

It was the State traffic inspectorate of Minusinsk that, apparently, became for him the last official place of work, from which he left in 1989.

After that, he became interested in anomalous phenomena, ufology (a scientific discipline that studies the UFO phenomenon -

) and various methods of influencing a person.

In 1990, Torop experienced a "spiritual awakening", and in 1991 he gave his first sermon on local television, where he first called himself Vissarion and said that Jesus Christ, his "predecessor", knew about his mission and was watching him. without interfering, from near-earth orbit.

The last thesis was confirmed by his acquaintances, local ufologists.

After a few years, the concept of Vissarion's sermons changed a lot and he began to identify himself with Jesus Christ, calling himself the son of God, and therefore the members of the community were prohibited from listening to his early sermons.

He expounded his teaching in the book "The Last Testament", created after the model of the Bible.

The utopian goal of Vissarion and his followers is to create a “new humanity” that will be free from violence and war, living in harmony with the environment, which is achieved by accumulating “positive energy” and getting rid of “negative”.

Vissarion repeatedly predicted the date of the "end of the world", but his prophecies did not come true.

The ROC and activists fighting various destructive sects have previously raised questions about the activities of the Church of the Last Testament, but all these years the organization felt very confident - it acted quite legally, being registered in the Ministry of Justice of the Russian Federation in 2000.

At the same time, the Russian Orthodox Church has a negative attitude towards the activities of Vissarion, considering him a false Christ, and his teaching - a heresy.

According to unofficial data, only in the Kuraginsky and Karatuzsky districts of the Krasnoyarsk Territory, in 20 settlements, about five thousand followers of the organization can live.

According to rough estimates, the same number of Vissarion adherents live in other Russian cities, as well as abroad.