The Nizhny Novgorod sect named after Putin thundered at the beginning of the president’s second term in the mid-2000s. A certain Mother Photinia announced that in a past life she was the Apostle Paul, and began to pray with the adherents at the “myrrh-streaming” icon with his image. “Sobesednik” (“Interlocutor”) correspondent Olga Kuznetsova, reporting in June 2023 from the Church of Mother Photinia in the village of Bolshaya Yelnya, Nizhny Novgorod region, found out what is now happening in the monastery.

Tales of Mother Photinia

Mother said that you can’t kill anyone at all, not even plants. She had not heard of a law punishing the “killing” of rare mushrooms, but she would probably support it. And she also reminded me, just in case, that people are sinful and greedy. She recently built a path to her temple for everyone for 95 thousand rubles, set up a collection jar, and they gave her 105 rubles.

Mother spoke a lot about the reincarnation of souls, referring to the Bible, saying that John the Baptist was Elijah the Prophet in a past life. The Russian Orthodox Church does not recognize this, but various religious pseudo-Orthodox movements and sects often exaggerate this.

In general, reincarnation is Photinia’s trick. She believes that in a past life she was the abbess of the Diveyevo monastery, Maria (she signs herself “Mother Maria”), Princess Olga (Putin was then Prince Vladimir), and many others, but the most important thing is that she, in her words, is the embodiment of the feminine the divine principle, the Mother of God herself and Eve.

Instead of Putin, the cross is crying

Photinia herself took me to see the temple on the top floor. Its walls are also painted pink. “This is the color of love,” mother explained. There are a lot of fresh flowers and icons in it, and there are also old ones – they were donated by parishioners when the temple opened. There is no Putin icon among them; they say Photinia keeps the “image” somewhere in the distant bins. After the surge of interest in the Putin sect, they probably had conversations with her, and now she doesn’t mention the president’s name in vain.

The temple needs miracles in order for people and money to flock, and now instead of the myrrh-streaming image of Vladimir Vladimirovich, the cross is crying with peace, while the old icon Mother of God of Kazan is crying “blood” (red stains are visible, according the correspondent Kuznetsova).

“I carry out all the rituals: I baptize, and I perform the wedding, and I perform the funeral service,” Photinia said. “I don’t conduct unction; the channel for the Lord’s unction has been closed for two years now.”

But Photinia conducts rites of exorcism, driving out demons. Recently I “kicked the demon out” of a girl who suffered from gluttony. “You have to be very pure, because you take the essence upon yourself,” she noted.

It was not Putin who launched the special operation, but the Heaven

Photinia was in a great mood and started talking. It began with the fact that people today live in sin, “are proud of knowledge that is of no use to us at all, they travel to different countries” instead of developing spiritually, for example, reading spiritual literature of its own production. Photinia publishes a magazine, Temple of Light, which is distributed free of charge by her supporters.

Mother said that we must “love, be wise, have compassion for others, not divide the world into strangers and ours, we are all brothers and sisters,” and moved on to the more specific topic of the special operation, which she does not particularly approve of.

– But wasn’t it Putin, whom you yourself call the Apostle Paul, who announced it?

It was interesting how she would get out, but Svetlana Robertovna did not blink an eye.

– One person can never do anything; there is a group managing the country. If we are talking about world conflicts, the Patriarch of Russia is sure to take part in this, and now there is also the Duma. “It’s not the president who makes decisions,” my mother said and told me the story of the Apostle Paul, who used to be a very bad man, a pagan Saul, who reached the extreme point of darkness, saw the light and believed in Christ.

– Now Putin is Saul, and he needs to cross this line (between light and darkness – Ed.). “He doesn’t want any [word prohibited by the Russian laws] now; it has dragged on, people are dying, there is suffering. But he didn’t untie it, this is heaven. It’s just time to take the souls of people,” Photinia concluded and stated that we have the power we deserve.

She says she hasn’t heard about Navalny and those who disagree, but just in case she prays for everyone, probably for foreign agents too. Holy woman…

– What to do if a person was mobilized for this, in your words, murder? – I couldn’t stand it.

Mother came up with this too: they say, you can’t desert, it’s “cowardice” and “a form of pride,” but you have to go and pray. One of her children, who did not want to go, was called up, but he has been in reserve with his regiment for a long time.

The beginning

In the village of Bolshaya Elnya, Nizhny Novgorod region, in a private three-story house with a turret, the sect “Mother Photinia the Light-Bringer” is actively operating. The sect gained wide popularity by declaring Vladimir Putin a saint and his icon as a myrrh-streaming icon. Mother Photinia calls herself the reincarnation of “Christ-Eve.”

Queen of Sheba d’Arc

The real name of “Mother Photinia” is Svetlana Robertovna Frolova. Until 1996, she worked as the director of the trade and purchasing base of the Gorky Railway, and in 1996 she was sentenced to one and a half years in prison for fraud. After leaving prison, Svetlana Frolova took up healing and soon acquired a mansion in the center of Nizhny Novgorod. According to one version, the mansion was purchased with income from healing; according to another version, money remained from earlier times.

Soon Frolova expanded her range of healing services and declared herself a priest and the reincarnation of “Eve-Christ.”

Back in 2005, Photinia wrote to Putin with a call for spiritual perfection and to Patriarch Alexy with a request to ordain her to the priesthood.

There was no answer, and Photinia declared herself a priest. Soon she senses new spirits within her:

“Before becoming Photinia and Eve, Svetlana Frolova was the Queen of Sheba, Queen Helena, who found the tree of the Holy Cross, Joan of Arc, an Indian guru who communicated with the merchant Afanasy Nikitin, Abbess Maria of the Diveyevo Monastery at the beginning of the twentieth century and, finally, Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya,” noted religious scholar Roman Lunkin, who spoke in detail with Photinia in 2005.

Revenue percentage

“Unfortunately, the sect enjoys a certain popularity and is clearly concerned about expanding this popularity. It is known that the creation of a pseudo-religious movement is a very profitable business, only slightly inferior in profitability to trafficking in drugs and pornography, organizing prostitution and the like,” Archpriest Vsevolod Chaplin comments on the activities of the sect in a comment to PRAVMIR.

For several years, Photinia distributed a periodical in which articles were signed by the Heavenly Father and Seraphim of Sarov.

At the “worship” they sang “May there always be sunshine” and sat on rugs (borrowed from Islam). Eyewitnesses reported that worshipers at these meetings were put into a trance.

Gradually, Photinia synthesized all religions, calling for “asceticism from Orthodoxy, mercy from Catholicism, morality from Islam, and from Buddhism – Buddha himself and reincarnation”.

The sect was not in poverty: according to the testimony of village residents, Mother Photinia invited people to her community, promising that the trustees would solve financial difficulties. As the Nizhny Novgorod Diocesan Gazette reported, “according to the local police department, Svetlana Robertovna Frolova regularly submits requests for financial assistance to various entrepreneurs and organizations, signing herself as “Orthodox community” or “true Orthodox Christians.”

Bob Marley, Barack Obama, Putin

In addition to attracting people to the community, Photinia is active in publishing: about 40 of her books, published in Moscow, Rostov-on-Don, and Ukraine, can be found in online stores. By the way, sometimes her creations are found in Orthodox bookstores. To expand the “subscriber base,” Putin was declared a saint, and his “icon” streamed myrrh.

Archpriest Vsevolod Chaplin believes that this is a very natural move for the sect: “Of course, this industry is fueled in a certain way. It is known that one of the best ways to promote a new religious movement is to associate it with famous names. Thus, Rastafarianism was revolved around the names of Bob Marley and the Ethiopian Emperor Haile Selassie I, in Kenya there is a pseudo-Catholic sect that declared Bark Obama a saint, and here they exploit the name of Putin. There is nothing original in this approach.”

Press secretary of V.V. Putin, Dmitry Peskov told the media that Putin “winces at the cult of devotion fueled by Frolova. Of course, he is the most popular person in this country and has his own fan club, but it is not a cult.”

The Nizhny Novgorod diocese has been conducting explanatory work among residents for many years: there have been official statements and publications in diocesan bulletins:

“It has been repeatedly reported in the media, in our diocesan newspaper, that Mrs. Fotinia is not Orthodox, and the activities she carries out can only be called sectarian. We hope that law enforcement agencies will pay attention to its activities, and the illegal existence of this religious group will be properly assessed,” said Archpriest Andrey Milkin, who was then the press secretary of the diocese, back in 2005.

Local residents demanded 10 years ago that Svetlana Frolova be evicted, but the head of the self-government, Evgeniy Polavin, did not see any legal grounds for this.

It is obvious that in the pre-election months the Photinia sect will significantly expand the number of adherents, especially since reports of myrrh streaming are replenished with an ever-growing list of “miracles”: “People come to the Nizhny Novgorod village, where the so-called. Mother Photinia, with requests for healing, longs for quick miracles. Exploiting people’s illnesses by extorting money from them is not a profitable activity,” said Archpriest Vsevolod Chaplin.

Sources in Russian: Assistant Administrator of the Nizhny Novgorod Diocese Andrey Milkin: “Mrs. Photinia is not Orthodox, and the activities she carries out cannot be called anything other than sectarian.” http://www.nne.ru/news.php?id=1615; R. Lunkin. From witchcraft to the creation of a religious system. Keston Institute Research; http://www.keston.org.uk/_russianreview/edition0304/05Fotinya.html.

Photo: moyhram.org, https://sobesednik.ru/obshchestvo/20230621-ranse-byl-apostolom-pavlom-kak-segod.