More extreme religious cults are reported in Russia

MOSCOW — As the drama around the Russian sect awaiting the apocalypse in a cave in the country's Penza Region continues to unfold, media reports of other isolated and extreme Christian groups have begun to emerge.

The True Russian Orthodox Church went underground about two weeks ago to "save themselves during the time of the apocalypse," which they say will come in May 2008.

The group of 29 people, including four children, has threatened to set fire to themselves if any attempt is made to force them to come to the surface.

The story has never been far from the headlines in Russia since the news first broke, and with an apparent deadlock in negotiations with the sect in Penza, the media spotlight now has fallen on other such "similar" groups.

On Tuesday, the Rossiiskaya Gazeta newspaper reported on a group calling itself the Oprichnik Brotherhood of Ivan the Terrible, in the village of Koscsheyevo, a few hours from Moscow.

The Oprichniki were a group of merciless killers Ivan the Terrible tapped to eliminate his enemies in 16th century Russia. The modern-day Oprichniki live in peasantlike conditions — using outside toilets, drawing water from wells — and have a mixed reputation in the surrounding area.

Some accuse them of cruelty and religious fanaticism, while others say they are a strange, yet essentially harmless group of committed Christians.

The group is believed to consist of three families, all of whom moved to the area from Russia's Far East a few years ago.

A Russian expert on religions and sects, Alexander Dvorkin, told the paper the group shared many similarities with the sect in Penza — namely "mind control and deception."

The brotherhood, like many such fringe Russian Orthodox groups, is reported to possess icons of Ivan the Terrible and the "mad monk" Rasputin.

The region's local prosecutor told the paper "the main problem we have had with the Oprichniki was in 2000-2001 when they got into a conflict with the police over a document check.

"Another time a woman from the Ukraine came to us claiming that her daughter was being held against her will by the group. We were unable to confirm this, however."

Burning passports is also common among such groups, whose members believe the documents contain 666, the number of the Anti-Christ.

Religion was tightly controlled in the Soviet Union, and after it collapsed, there was an explosion in sects and cults, as well as interest in New Age philosophies and beliefs.

The back pages of many Russian tabloid newspapers are full of advertisements for "healers" and "magicians."

One of the most well-known sects in Russia has its base near the southern Siberian town of Abakan, where thousands of people, both Russian and foreign, worship a former Russian provincial traffic policeman, Sergei Torop, as the second coming of Christ.

There now are believed to be several hundred such sects in Russia, containing some 600,000 to 800,000 people.