In the middle of Siberia's Taiga forest, there is a place where many have found salvation. It is known as Petropavlovka, the home of the Church of the Last Testament, which has attracted at least 5,000 followers since its establishment in 1990.
The church's leader is known as Vissarion, a.k.a. the Teacher. In another life he was Sergey Anatolyevitch Torop and served as a patrol officer in Minusinsk until the late 1980s. Then, on August 18, 1990, he experienced a revelation: His was the word of God. He began sermonizing in and around his hometown and soon, with a handful of newly converted followers by his side, he retreated to the ancient Taiga and began a new life -- and, some might say, founded an entirely new world.
Just about everything Vissarion has ever said or thought has been recorded in the never-ending Last Testament, a follow-up of sorts to the New Testament that currently spans 10 volumes and thousands of pages. Inside is doctrine on the dual origins of the universe (one spawned nature, the other the human soul), something called the "outer-space mind" (aliens, basically), and the rapidly approaching end of the world. Or at least this is what I understand from the handful of scriptures that have been (somewhat poorly) translated into English. While Christian imagery abounds, the church's ideology is an all-encompassing amalgam of the world's major religions and includes aspects of Buddhism, Hinduism, Paganism and many other spiritual philosophies.
