Man Claims To Be Reincarnated Jesus With Mostly Female Followers

An elderly Brazilian man who thinks he is Jesus reincarnated has mostly female disciples who follow him around the world. It makes chaplain Jemima Thackray want to run a million miles.


He and his followers survive on home-grown fruit like bananas, avocados and mangos as well as a vegetable garden. There's also a chapel where Ingra speaks to his followers every Saturday morning and a kennel for the dogs that guard the complex.Picture: Incredible Features/Barcroft

New photos have been released this week of a 66-year old Brazilian man who claims to be the reincarnated Jesus. Inri Christo was born Álvaro Theiss, but changed his name to Inri (the acrynoym of the Latin title ‘Jesus the Nazarene, King of the Jews’) when he heard a voice in his head revealing his true divine identity.


His quirky life has led to critics saying he is mentally ill - an accusation he firmly denies. I can be crazy but not dumb, he said. Madness is different from dementia. It is the mother of philosophers, prophets and inventors.Picture: Incredible Features/Barcroft

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The photos of him dressed up in full Jesus regalia, sitting on a throne, surrounded by disciples are at best amusing and at worst disturbing, not least because the line of people looking adoringly up at him are almost exclusively young women. It’s a picture that provides yet more evidence for the worrying fact that women are much more susceptible to being seduced by religious cults than men – research suggests that women make up to 70 per cent of global cult members.

There will be plenty of sociological explanations for this, to do with the fact that in many cultures women are less well educated than men, are less empowered and therefore more attracted to the illusion of security that a cult offers. And yet this can’t be the whole story because the pattern is the same when it comes to well-educated western types who join extreme sects.

Worshippers gather around to listen to the uplifting words of Inri Cristo - who believes he is Jesus reincarnated. The 66-year-old Brazilian, previously named Álvaro Theiss, has been 'preaching' since 1979 and now has 'hundreds' of followers across the world, including in the UK, Australia and France.Picture: Incredible Features/Barcroft

 This begs the question: do women have a greater need for spiritual fulfilment than men? It’s certainly the case that women trump men when it comes to church attendance by some margin. But if this was truly the reason then we’d see the same pattern in rest of the major religions, when in fact men outnumber women in other places of worship in the UK. 

But his Jesus-style of dressing and controversial views on capitalism, abortion and even Christmas have seen him detained by police more than 40 times. He said: I know that there are countless people scattered throughout Brazil and the world whose hearts beat together with mine.Picture: Incredible Features/Barcroft

This leaves the rather boringly predictable conclusion that women, even emancipated ones, are more vulnerable to cults because of our history of oppression. We are simply more comfortable being under authority because, even on a subconscious level felt merely as a legacy of the past, we’re used to it. But being in the clutches of someone like Inri Christo is not just a case of submitting to a man as a spiritual guru, it’s worshipping him as a higher being.

Despite seeing himself as Jesus reborn, Inri refuses to celebrate Christmas saying it is just a day where 'the rich humiliate the poor'. It is a day when the little sons of the rich can show the gifts they received while the poor children only get a crumb, he said. So it is a very sad day for anyone who sees things with the eyes that I see.

 But what’s the difference between this guy and any other religious leader? The ‘real Jesus’ was a man too wasn’t he? Yet, as a female Christian, I choose to worship him. And didn’t he set in motion a religion which has systematically oppressed women for centuries? When faced with these facts, combined with these photos of the young female faces gazing up at a fake Christ, my initial reaction is to want to run a million miles and find a spirituality which has nothing less than undiluted oestrogen running through its veins.

Inri says he first experienced the 'revelation' that he was Christ during a religious fast in Santiago, Chile, in 1979.Picture: Incredible Features/Barcroft

There’s even a small part of me that sympathises with the Femen activist who, in protest against the patriarchy of religion, stood on the altar of Cologne Cathedral this Christmas Day with the slogan ‘I am God’ emblazoned across her bare boobs. 

Afterwards he wandered to 27 countries to spread his message but it resulted in him being expelled from the United States, Venezuela and Britain.Picture: Incredible Features/Barcroft

But it’s too easy, in fact it’s downright unintelligent, to write off something that’s good and true at its heart just because some of its practitioners have let it down, or even because it’s often been expressed through maleness. This is surely feminism as the bluntest, least subtle instrument it can be.

Inri Cristo surrounded by followers circa 1982 at Belem cathedral in Lisbon, PortugalPicture: Incredible Features/Barcroft

For feminism, much like religion, should not be about asserting the rights of one group over another, but seeking a common humanity in which everyone has equal stake.

He and his followers survive on homegrown fruit like bananas, avocados and mangos as well as a vegetable garden. There's also a chapel where Ingra speaks to his followers every Saturday morning and a kennel for the dogs that guard the complex.Picture: Incredible Features/Barcroft

Artifacts from the life of Inri Cristo are kept in glass cabinets at his chapel at the Soust compound near BrasiliaPicture: Incredible Features/Barcroft

He now runs his own church, the 'Soust' (Suprema Ordem Universal da Santíssima Trindade), located on a lush farmland outside of Brasilia, the capital of Brazil, which he calls the 'New Jerusalem'.Picture: Incredible Features/Barcroft
 

Artifacts from the life of Inri Cristo are kept in glass cabinets at his chapelPicture: Incredible Features/Barcroft
 

A group of Inri Cristo's devoted disciplesPicture: Incredible Features/Barcroft