Alexander Dvorkin

Alexander Leonidovich Dvorkin (; born 20 August 1955 in Moscow) is a Russian anti-cult activist. From 1999 to 2012 he was professor and head of the department of the study of new religious movements (cults) at Saint Tikhon's Orthodox University. According to Dvorkin's book My America , he was not admitted to the fifth examination session and was expelled from the institute for poor academic performance and non-attendance in early 1975. Remembering the exhibitions, he does not name them among the reasons for exclusion.

On 6 March 1977 Dvorkin emigrated from the USSR on an Israeli visa. He did not go to Israel, but went to the United States. He worked as a courier, waiter, copyist. The same year, he became a student of Saint Vladimir's Orthodox Theological Seminary in Crestwood, New York, graduating with a Master of Divinity in theology in 1983 with thesis titled "Life, personality and ideas of Sergius Stragorodsky, Bishop of Yamburgh and Archbishop of Vyborgh and Finland (later patriarch of Moscow and all Russia) before 1917". In 1984, Dvorkin received American citizenship. In 1984, he enrolled in doctoral studies at the Department of Medieval History at the Jesuit-affiliated independent school – Fordham University. Dvorkin graduated with a Ph.D. in Medieval studies in 1988 with a dissertation titled "Ivan the Terrible as a Religious Type".

In 1993, Dvorkin founded the first Russian anti-cult organization: Saint Irenaeus of Lyons Information and Advisory Center (Информационно-консультационный центр св. Иринея Лионского) with the blessing of the Patriarch of Moscow, Patriarch Alexy II and became its head. The center works with Christian countercult organizations in Russia and abroad, being the head center of the Russian Association of Centers for the Study of Religions and Sects. From 2009 to 2021, Dvorkin was vice-president of the European Federation of Centres of Research and Information on Sectarianism (FECRIS), an umbrella organization for anti-cult groups in Europe. After being kicked out from FECRIS he stated that it is "run by cowards and racists." Dvorkin was on the board of FECRIS. Dvorkin has been extremely active in opposing cults and new religious movements through his publications. According to Yuri Savenko, the President of the Independent Psychiatric Association of Russia, Dvorkin has claimed that the followers of Nikolai Rerikh as well as Jehovah's Witnesses, Scientology, Hare Krishnas, Neo-Pagans, Neo-Pentecostals, and many others are "totalitarian cults". In May 2008, Dvorkin attended a Sino-Russian Forum on sect studies in Beijing, and in an interview with Xinhua he said that "Falun Gong practitioners feel they do not belong to any country and act entirely in accordance with Li 's will. The cult even gained support from other international cults and from the governments and parliaments of some western countries." He also attacked the "Bhagavad-Gita" as an “extremist” book and stated that "We won’t be mistaken if we say that, from the Orthodox viewpoint, Krishna is one of the demons." In addition, as for the prophet of Islam, Dvorkin claimed that "either Mohammed suffered from a disease and it was a delirium vision; or it was a demonic obsession; or, once again, the Byzantine fathers claim that he was a sort of fantasizer who made it all up and then, which he hadn’t expected, his relatives believed in it. But of course, the combinations of all the three are possible as well." The American government claimed in 2018 that "Dvorkin is one of a large network of radical Russian Orthodox activists who have grown considerably in influence over the last 10 years due to the Russian government's increasing patronage of the Russian Orthodox Church and the [Russian] government's Soviet-era paranoia about the subversive potential of independent religious groups."

On 12 April 2016, the University of Prešov awarded Dvorkin an honorary doctorate in theology partly in "appreciation of his work in the academic, religious, social, political and cultural fields, but also [as] an emphasis and concrete manifestation of scientific, social and cultural cooperation by the community of Prešov University in Prešov".

He has appeared numerous times on Russian television and many times on television in various Eastern-European countries.

He has written 15 books (on various cults, on church history as well as autobiographies) and was editor-compiler of a further four. He is the author of about 800 articles in 17 languages. He is the author of articles about new religious movements in Great Russian Encyclopedia and Orthodox Encyclopedia.