Sergei Torop, cult leader, arrested in Russia

Siberian cult leader Sergei Torop arrested in helicopter raid. A former traffic policeman who amassed thousands of followers after proclaiming himself the second coming of Christ has been arrested by Russian security services in a helicopter raid on his commune in the Siberian wilderness. Sergei Torop, who calls himself Vissarion, founded the Church of the Last Testament shortly before the break-up of the Soviet Union in 1991. He preached that the end of the world was imminent and that only he and his followers would survive.