Sometime in 1979, while Álvaro Theiss was fasting, he came to believe that he was Jesus Christ reborn.

He received a divine message in the form of a voice in his head, and, in the days that followed, he decided to permanently shed his former name and refer to himself as “INRI Cristo,” a tribute to the inscription “Iesus Nazarenus Rex Iudaeorum” that the Roman prefect Pontius Pilate inscribed on the cross on which Jesus was crucified.

INRI now lives with 12 of his disciples—three men and nine women—in a compound surrounded by barbed wire and an electric fence outside of Brasília, Brazil, in a town he has named New Jerusalem.

He explained his life story and teachings to photographer Jonas Bendiksen, who visited the compound that houses INRI’s church, named the Supreme Universal Order of the Holy Trinity.

His story, along with profiles of four other self-proclaimed messiahs, appear in the August issue of National Geographic magazine.

INRI’s disciples always dress in sky blue clothes. He has given them all new names, starting with the letter “A”.

The youngest, Alara, was brought to New Jerusalem by her parents as a child. Twenty-five years later, she is his personal assistant, tasked with sorting out his clothes and turning on his iPad.

He told Bendiksen that he has been celibate since his original revelation in 1979, and channels his unused sexual energy to internal communication with God. He also claims that all who live in New Jerusalem are also celibate.