Two Jesus Christs faced legal action in Russia as courts handed down prison sentences and fines in two separate cases. On Monday, a religious leader claiming to be the reincarnation of Jesus Christ was sentenced to 12 years in prison for harming the physical and mental health of his followers and extorting money. In another ruling, a separate man also known as “Jesus” was fined for illegally registering foreign nationals. The information comes from separate reports by Reuters and Russian outlet RT.
According to the reports, 64-year-old Sergei Torop, known to his followers as “Vissarion,” founded the “Church of the Last Testament” in 1991, the year the Soviet Union collapsed, in a remote area of Siberia’s Krasnoyarsk region.
The former traffic police officer portrayed himself as the reincarnation of Jesus Christ, claiming to have been “reborn” to spread God’s word. During a time of poverty and lawlessness, thousands joined his movement, with many relocating to a settlement called the “Abode of Dawn” or “Sun City.”
With long hair and a beard, this self-proclaimed messiah told his followers to abstain from meat, alcohol, smoking, swearing, and money use. They regularly prayed in his honor and looked toward his grand home atop a mountain.
Russian investigators accused Torop and two associates of using psychological pressure to obtain money, causing severe mental and physical harm. A Novosibirsk court sentenced Torop and Vladimir Vedernikov to 12 years each in a maximum-security prison, while Vadim Redkin received 11 years. The trio was also ordered to pay 40 million rubles (USD 511,500) in damages.
In 2020, Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) arrested Torop and his associates in a helicopter raid. According to state agency RIA, they harmed 16 people psychologically, caused serious physical injury to six, and moderate injury to one. Vedernikov also faced fraud charges.
Torop had faced similar allegations before but denied them in a 2017 BBC documentary, which also revealed that followers’ daughters were trained to become “future wives for worthy men.”
In a separate case, a court in Kazan fined another man calling himself “Jesus Christ” for illegally registering 45 foreign nationals in his small apartment using false information.
The 45-year-old, listed in court records as “Jesus Petrovich Christ,” charged each person 2,000 rubles (USD 25) for registration. The court fined him 13,000 rubles (USD 163).
Last month, President Vladimir Putin signed a stricter immigration law increasing penalties for violations. Investigators say the man’s real birth name remains unknown; obsessed with numerology, he legally changed his name years ago, keeping only his patronymic “Petrovich.”
Though his trial was scheduled for spring 2025, the so-called “Jesus” repeatedly missed court dates. In April, the court ordered his forced appearance. In May, a Moscow court fined him 60,000 rubles (USD 755) for similar offenses.
These cases show how Two Jesus Christs in Russia faced very different but equally serious legal consequences, highlighting the country’s crackdown on religious fraud and illegal immigration.
