Orthodox Cave Cult
Russian officials say talks renewed with cave sect
Sat Mar 29, 7:05 AM
MOSCOW (AFP) - Russian officials on Saturday said they had redoubled efforts to persuade 28 members of a doomsday sect holed up in a cave to come out, after seven others ended their five-month confinement.
Oleg Melnichenko, deputy governor of the Penza region, some 500 kilometres (310 miles) southeast of Moscow, said on national television that the seven had come out after conditions deteriorated in the cave, where they had lived since early November.
"The state of the cave is rather bad because it started filling with melted ice. Part of it has collapsed," said Melnichenko.
"In the interests of the people's security we have to negotiate with them in such a way that they trust us. We don't plan to trick them," he said.
Another regional official, Alexander Yelatontsev, said the seven who had come out were in good health and had given assurances about the state of those inside, including a girl aged one year and eight months.
Television pictures showed female sect members in head scarves speaking with those in the cave through a fissure in the hillside -- a barren landscape after months of winter snow.
The sect members, including citizens of both Russia and Belarus, barricaded themselves into the cave near the village of Nikolskoye in November to await the Apocalypse, which they originally calculated would come in May 2008.
Black-clad Orthodox priests have joined local authorities in trying to persuade the members to leave, so far with only limited success.
Earlier this week, the sect members said they would emerge on Orthodox Easter Sunday, April 27, according to Melnichenko.
They had previously threatened to blow themselves up with gas canisters if anyone tried to force them out.
Officials said they had plentiful reserves of food and water and were able to cook inside the cave.
Despite the rising influence of the Orthodox church, unofficial sects have rapidly grown in popularity in Russia since the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991.
The leader of the Penza sect, Pyotr Kuznetsov, has not joined his followers in the cave and has been detained in a psychiatric hospital, sometimes emerging to join negotiations.
7 Russian Cult Members Emerge From Cave
By MIKE ECKEL – 1 day ago
MOSCOW (AP) — Seven women who had holed up in a cave for months with other members of a Russian cult awaiting the end of the world emerged Friday night and were being treated by emergency workers, regional officials said.
More than two dozen others remained behind but were expected to come out as early as Saturday, the governor's office said.
About 35 members of the Christian cult entered the cave near the village of Nikolskoye, 400 miles southeast of Moscow, in early November to await the end of the world, which they expected in May. They threatened to detonate gas canisters if police tried to remove them by force.
The vice governor of the Penza region, Oleg Melnichenko, said in televised comments that the seven women came out voluntarily, carrying satchels with their belongings. He said the cult leader, the self-declared prophet Pyotr Kuznetsov, was brought from a local psychiatric hospital to help persuade the women to leave.
He said the women walked on their own nearly a mile to a prayer house, where emergency workers were talking with them, the RIA-Novosti news agency reported.
"There is no reason to urgently hospitalize any of them," Melnichenko was quoted as saying.
Another official in the governor's office, who gave only his first name, Alexander, said the other cult members still in the cave were expected to give up their vigil, perhaps by Saturday. He said four children, reportedly under age 2, were among those in the cave.
Melnichenko said officials feared that melting snow could eventually lead to the collapse of the cave, but there was no immediate threat to those who remained behind.
Officials had repeatedly enlisted the help of priests from the Orthodox Church in an effort to persuade the group to leave, communicating mainly through a small chimney pipe that poked up through the snowy hillside.
Earlier this week, Melnichenko told reporters that some of the cult members had indicated they might leave the cave on Orthodox Easter, which is April 27.
Kuznetsov has been charged with setting up a religious organization associated with violence. Earlier this week, officials said they had seized literature that included what appeared to be extremist rhetoric. He has been confined to a psychiatric hospital since November.
An engineer from a devout family, Kuznetsov, who goes by the title of Father Pyotr, declared himself a prophet several years ago. He left his family and established the True Russian Orthodox Church and recruited followers in Russia and Belarus.
He reportedly told followers that, in the afterlife, they would judge whether others deserved heaven or hell.
Followers were not allowed to watch television, listen to the radio or handle money, Russian media reported.
