Attitudes toward alternative spirituality in Russia are shaped by legislative limitations on religious freedom, the state’s traditionalism, and Russian Orthodox anticultism. Nevertheless, public personalities associated with new religious movements persist and flourish. Oleg Torsunov, popularizer of Vedic Psychology and holistic medicine, is a striking example. Despite ongoing controversies about his religious affiliation, medical claims, and gender ideology, Torsunov continues to attract followers. This article examines why public figures such as Torsunov seem unsinkable in hostile cultural environments. Mapping the heated discursive landscape surrounding Torsunov, I argue that the secret to this resilience is a “legitimation lattice”—the strategy of grounding one’s authority in several sources of legitimacy. Torsunov’s lattice is composed of different interlocked strips: science, Indian spirituality, personal charisma, and common stereotypes. This structure increases the resilience of controversial public figures in two ways: by making their legitimation strategies flexible and by allowing them to emphasize mainstream values as needed.

The Siberian community of Vissarion (Last Testament Church) is a new religious movement established at the beginning of 1990s, after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Among its members (estimated at several thousand), who come mainly from Russia and former Soviet republics, there is also a large group of Vissarion’s followers from Eastern Europe. In this article, I present a general characteristic of the movement and four stories from adherents. I indicate common elements in their narratives of coming to and living in the community, such as belief in continuing spiritual development, the importance of living close to nature, the focus on feelings, and concern for future generations. I also point out a “generational shift” among members of the importance of the breakup of the Soviet Union and suggest the need for scholarly consideration of its decreasing significance for adherents of new religious movements in the post-socialist region.

The introduction to this special issue on new religions in Eastern Europe provides a historical background on the place of new religious movements in the region during the Soviet and post-Soviet era. This includes the varieties of new and alternative religions active in these societies and how this changed after the fall of the Berlin Wall. The guest editor notes several main directions of scholarly research focusing on these new religions and summarizes the four articles included in this special issue, which focus on the Lithuanian neoshamanic community, the pyramid of Merkinė in Lithuania, marketing and branding strategies of contemporary spirituality movements in Estonia, and the Last Testament Church in Siberia, Russia.