Informant38

Siberian Sectarian Win Elections relations with the surrounding world heated up after a visit to the Vissarionites in October 1995 by the head of the subcommittee of the State Duma on religious education, Vitaly Savitsky. He was accompanied to the commune by reporters, after which there appeared in the mass media a whole series of negative statements about the "totalitarian" character of the sect.
"They showed the local residents the enemy," Kazakov said, "and a wave of violence was raised."
Two months after his visit to the commune, Savitsky died in Petersburg under strange circumstances. The investigation did not establish the involvement of followers of the "new Christ" in this tragedy. And last fall a special committee of the administration of the territory decided not to recommend the "Church of the Last Covenant" for reregistration.
{this is the Vissarionites. off a tip from Tom Tomorrow}