Have You Heard? Vissarion Herald As The New Christ

Tweet

I saw this on the news late last night of a person who now goes under the name of Vissarion and who some proclaim as the new messiah, or Christ. His real name is Sergei Torop, and was once a traffic cop...Here's a bit more of him from an article I found about him and his followers. http://www.lermanet.com/cisar/russia/030414.htm (Quote) [i] ..."Sergei Torop was an alert traffic policeman. That is, until the day in May 1990 when it suddenly became clear to him that he was the son of God. Since then he's attracted thousands of believers to the harsh living conditions of the Russian taiga. Vissarion's disciples include Germans, too. Sect critics are apprehensive about mass suicide. The heart of the Earth can be found in Siberia, and in the Taiga lies salvation. Because here is where the "Master of Live" lives. Each one of his words and each of his glances is permeated with love and the light of truth. Here, so he says, is the Earth still undisturbed from emotional chaos that flickers of the planet like a gray haze. If in the near future the Earth were to be struck by a large comet which lays waste to most of its surface, if the atomic warheads start to spontaneously explose in the deserts of Nevada, or if a new virus were to devastate the unbelievers of mankind, then the disciples of the Master will be rewarded for their years of efforts and sacrifice. This community in the forests of Russia can best withstand great upheavals, because it has a deep understanding of cosmic connections. With his long brown hair, he strides from the blue waters of the Tiberkul over the hill by the lake wearing a velvet purple robe. He smiles. "Putting it simply: Yes. I am Jesus Christ." As the 42-year-old son of God, Sergei Torop is building the man of the future, the "sixth race."About 5,000 people, according to the sect's information, have flocked to Vissarion, as Torop calls himself. They live in 40 small villages in an area half as big as Switzerland nearly 4,000 kilometers east of Moscow, south of Krasnoyarsk. Most of the religious seekers of happiness are Russian. They include many intellectuals, musicians, actors and former officers of the Red Army. Most of them had found themselves in a vacuum devoid of meaning after the collapse of the Soviet Union. They made their way out of the chaos of the cities and prescribed for themselves the new love-communism in the Taiga. But since then Vissarion also has found adherents in Bulgaria, Belgium, Italy, Australia, the USA and Germany.... The daily routine in the harsh living conditions of the Taiga, in houses without electricity and with running water, is rather dreary, especially for Westerners. In winters it frequently reaches 40 below and the summers are unbearably hot. Because of the heat people can hardly heave their shacks; they protects themselves from the millions of biting insects with gloves. In this insect hell they farm vegetables and live mainly from buckwheat. Meat and milk products are taboo. Wash basins stand at the ready in the huts of the sect Paradise for bodily care; their daily needs are served by bio-toilets. On the edge of the settlements are large dumps filled with man-made trash."There are no fat people" in the realm of the Siberian Christ, Tanner finds out. This is a consequence of Vissarion's "nutrition recommendations." But the hard life in the Taiga doesn't toughen everybody by far. Relatives of a sect member reported in the "Berliner Dialog" of emaciated, undernourished people who he met on Tiberkul Lake, of meningitis and of people sick with tuberculosis. Many children were said to be suffering from rickets. [/i] Here's another article about him from the ABC News website which is the channel I heard about this http://abcnews.go.com/Travel/FaithMatters/Story?id=5225539&page=4 Here's a video story of it all http://abcnews.go.com/Travel/FaithMatters/story?id=5225539&page=1 And hang on folks....he even has his own website! http://vissarion.eu/en/ According to all the articles and videos I've come across, he has over 5,000 followers that have flocked to him, living in near poverty conditions, never seek medical aid or help. Uh...the skeptic in me is skeptical on this...is this a weird cult...AGAIN? To my mind, if he truly was the new messiah, would he allow people to become sickly...wouldn't he be healing them as the original Christ did? Would the new messiah ask people to live in poverty conditions, when the teachings of Christ was to live life, and live it more abundantly in all aspects. The original Christ was a humble spiritual avatar...he didn't expect for people to bow down at certain times of the day, stop whatever they were doing and turn their attention to the mountaintop where this Vessarion lives to worship him.. I mean doesn't this all sound so contradictory to the teachings of Christ? Okay...what's your take on all this? I mean yes, maybe this Vessarion MAY be a spiritual person, but do you think he can be the "Christ"? Or do you think this guy is all bunk. Do you think this is just one more weird cult..do you think as the article suggests that the people might do a suicide thing like they did in Waco, Texas with that David Kuresh?