Ioann Bereslavskiĭ

John Bereslavsky (Russian: Иоанн Береславский, romanized: Ioann Bereslavskij), born Veniamin Yakovlevich Bereslavsky (Russian: Вениамин Яковлевич Береславский), is a Russian founder of new spirituality movements, described by his followers as a prophet. He is also known as Juan de San Grial and John Bogomil.

Early life Bereslavsky was born in Moscow in 1946. He graduated from the Ippolitov-Ivanov Academy in 1966, and earned a Foreign Languages degree from Maurice Thorez Foreign Language Institute in 1970. In October 1985, Bereslavsky was ordained to the priesthood of the True Orthodox Church and adopted the name John, after either John the Baptist or John the Divine.

There are authors who have a negative view of the new religious movement. Ekaterina Elbakyan, who has a doctorate in Philosophy and is a specialist in the field of religious studies, does not.

Bereslavsky opposes the teachings of Joseph Volotsky (which he terms "Josephism"), believing that these teachings have corrupted Russian Orthodoxy with legalism and hypocrisy, and views his movement as having revived the position of Nilus of Sora.

Association for the Study of Cathar Culture In 2009, Bereslavsky resigned from his administrative position as the head of the OCSMG's council of bishops and relocated to Spain. In that organisation he is known as John Bogomil or John of the Holy Grail . This group has religious features such as the validation of its doctrine being based on a supposed revelation of the divinity. Bereslavsky's followers claim that he has "restored the green laurel of the Cathar Church back to life" —a reference to an Occitan tradition claiming that "after seven hundred years, the laurel will grow green again", meaning that Catharism would be restored seven centuries after it was eliminated.