A Russian court has sentenced Sergey Torop, a former traffic officer who claimed to be the reincarnation of Jesus Christ, to ...

Former traffic cop Sergei Torop commanded followers to stop using money while extracting funds from them through ...

Sergei Torop, 64, lost his job as a traffic officer and founded the Church of the Last Testament in 1991 after experiencing a "divine revelation".

Sergei Torop, 64, lost his job as a traffic cop before founding the Church of the Last Testament in 1991 and claiming to be ...

Vissarion and his followers believe the end of the world is coming and their Siberian community is the ark of salvation. Such sects have proliferated in Russia’s wilderness.

Vissarion's followers are strict vegetarians and they don't smoke or drink. The houses and churches are built from wood by hand and most of the energy comes from windmills and solar panels.

"Vissarion the Teacher," or "Jesus of Siberia," Russian ex-traffic cop Sergei Torop meets followers in the remote village of Petropavlovka, in Russia's Siberia region, August 18, 2009.

Vissarion has six children with two wives, "having at one stage married a 19-year-old who had lived with him since the age of seven," according to The Daily Mail. Tangent: ...

Vissarion, who normally dons a long white cloak and sports long hair and a beard, lives with his followers in Petropavlovka, or what he calls his “Siberian utopia,” The Guardian reported.

Except perhaps for dedicated Russophiles, composer Vissarion Shebalin will most likely be a welcome new discovery. He was a student of Nikolay Myaskovsky, highly respected by Prokofiev and a close ...