Ukrainians Seize 2 Fugitive Cult Leaders

The two fugitive leaders of a religious cult threatening to commit mass suicide here were taken into custody Wednesday night, police said Thursday.

But officials remain concerned that the detention of Marenam Tsvihun and Yuri Kryvonohov, respectively the cult’s self-proclaimed “living god” and “eternal prophet,” may not be enough to prevent the sect from carrying out its promised apocalypse on Sunday.

“The main work still lies ahead,” Gen. Valentin Nedryhailov, Ukraine’s deputy minister of the interior, told reporters Thursday.

Cult members, almost exclusively teen-agers and young adults, have hinted at what Nedryhailov called a “conspiratorial structure” that remains relatively intact.

“There is a hierarchy of apostles that could still assume authority over the sect,” he said.

Although 700 members of the cult have been detained throughout Ukraine since October, usually for failing to produce identification, Nedryhailov said more than 2,000 members of the Great White Brotherhood may still be active in Ukraine alone.

Many more are believed to be in Russia, the cult’s main stronghold, with smaller groups scattered across Belarus, Moldova, Kazakhstan and even Poland. No officials cared to speculate how Tsvihun’s detention will affect her followers’ willingness to “give their life for God,” a sacrifice that is supposed to guarantee a place in heaven after Judgment Day.

Authorities say all of the cult’s followers appear to be hypnotized to varying degrees. More than 300 of the 500 remaining in custody have declared hunger strikes, and some are in intensive care after they began receiving liquids last week.

Tsvihun and Kryvonohov were taken into custody Wednesday along with 60 cult members who attempted to occupy Kiev’s St. Sophia Cathedral.

Posing as tourists, the group finally aroused suspicion when it lingered too long near the church’s altar. According to militia spokesmen, the cult members violently resisted arrest, damaging the altar and injuring three militiamen.

Vadin Kurchenko, an official of the Internal Affairs Ministry’s public relations department, said in an interview that the cult considers the millennium-old cathedral a spiritual gateway that unites all of the world’s religious energy.

That spirit of ecumenism also defines Tsvihun’s wardrobe in her guise as the cult’s messiah, Maria Devi Christos: A white robe for Islam, a cross for Christians, beads for Hare Krishna.

Jewish symbolism is lacking, however, and the cult’s literature rails against “Jewish masonic lodges.”

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On Wednesday, Tsvihun was one of those in the cathedral. She went unrecognized in the roundup until militiamen noticed that the other cult members were treating her with great deference.

“They were kissing her feet,” Kurchenko said.

Kryvonohov was also not recognized immediately. The neatly combed, short black hair he sported in a 2-year-old photo in police dossiers is now a thing of the past. Today, the man who answers only to “John Swami” looked like a hippie.

Law enforcement officials have long considered Kryvonohov, who was reportedly a cybernetics expert before turning psychic and hypnotist, the mastermind behind the cult.

He faces charges of embezzlement, seizure of public property and other crimes. No criminal charges have been brought against Tsvihun.