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Conviction New religious movements Doomsday / apocalyptic group Kyiv, Ukraine · 1996

Great White Brotherhood leaders: convictions after apocalyptic control and the St. Sophia seizure

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Record class

Separate register

Evidence status

Convicted

Authority role

self-proclaimed living god and prophet, founder and church hierarchy

Organization

Great White Brotherhood, USMALOS

Archive classification

This is the archive's application of its published inclusion test. The cited record appears below.

The cited record identifies apocalyptic prophecy, absolute obedience, sleep and food deprivation, family separation and surrender of property, and instructions to refuse food and medical aid as the material spiritual doctrine, practice, authority, or pretext connected to the documented harm. The relevant authority role is self-proclaimed living god and prophet and founder and church hierarchy.

  • Prophecy or divine command
  • Religious marriage or family control

Evidence structure

Proceedings

  1. 1996-02-09 · criminal judgment and sentence

    Starokyivskyi District Court of Kyiv, Ukraine. Yuri Krivonogov received seven years, Marina Krivonogova four years and Vitaliy Kovalchuk six years. The convictions included mass disorder, seizure of St. Sophia Cathedral, resistance to authorities and organized group disobedience; later historical reporting also identifies harm to health under the guise of religious rites among the charges tried.

Documented coercion mechanisms

  • apocalyptic prophecy
  • absolute obedience
  • sleep and food deprivation
  • family separation and surrender of property
  • instructions to refuse food and medical aid

Cited record

Sources

contemporaneous court reporting judgment report Dzerkalo Tyzhnia, 'Leaders of the White Brotherhood convicted in Kyiv' (Feb. 9, 1996).

Contemporaneous judgment reporting records the three sentences, the offenses supporting the judgment and the leaders' claimed divine and ecclesiastical roles.

historical reporting historical case review Local History, 'To the end of the world with a living god' (historical review).

The Ukrainian historical review documents the movement's hierarchy, required obedience, prayer instead of sleep, strict fasting, family separation, property surrender, apocalyptic instructions to refuse food and medical aid, the charges tried and the sentences.

Source provenance

Source access and integrity log

This log records source retrieval and file integrity. It does not mean that an automated process independently confirmed every statement in the source.

Source and tier basis
https://zn.ua/LAW/v_kieve_osuzhdeny_lidery__belogo_bratstva.html Corpus classification: contemporaneous-court-reporting; evidentiary role: judgment-report. SHA-256 397c8bc9d4d8cd71666080d95ac7ca0bc6523dcc50958624ccb137ad68230927
Retrieval
2026-07-20 · Preserved
Bound by Fear automated source-preservation ledger
Source and tier basis
https://localhistory.org.ua/texts/statti/do-kintsia-svitu-z-zhivim-bogom/ Corpus classification: historical-reporting; evidentiary role: historical-case-review. SHA-256 883d16bebdc59aff5aa8f56c7cca7d543217b65100984770c072bb26da559ac5
Retrieval
2026-07-20 · Preserved
Bound by Fear automated source-preservation ledger

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