If Maria Devi Khrystos' prophecy is correct, she'll get out of jail Sunday. But she'll do it the hard way - by dying and being resurrected.
The 33-year-old Khrystos leads the White Brotherhood sect, which regards her as the Messiah. They believe that she will die, then be resurrected on Sunday, after which the world will end.Khrystos, cult founder Yuri Khryvonohov and about 60 followers were arrested Wednesday after a scuffle with riot police at St. Sophia Cathedral.
Some of the cult's followers "believe that Maria Devi Khrystos is dead and that she will resurrect on Nov. 14, ascending the heavens in a 60-meter ball of fire," Interior Ministry spokesman Ivan Lev-chen-ko said Saturday.
"I told them that she is not dead, I have seen her in prison, to which they jeer me and begin shouting," he said.
Authorities say she will remain in prison until at least Nov. 24. The cult initially had said that was the day the world would end, but it then changed the date.
Khrystos has been charged with hooliganism and destroying state property, the Interior Ministry said Saturday.
Ministry officials said the cathedral sustained about $2,000 damage in Wednesday's skirmish. They said cult members used fire extinguishers to hit and spray police officers.
Khrystos, whose name was Maria Tsvihun before she declared herself the Messiah in 1990, is a former Communist youth organizer and journalist. She claims a following of tens of thousands of people worldwide.
Khrystos left her home after meeting Khryvonohov, a former cybernetics engineer who proclaimed her to be God. Authorities have said he will be charged with influencing minors, publishing slanderous materials against the government and seizing state property.