Victor Houteff

A Bulgarian-American religious reformer who founded the Davidian Seventh-day Adventist movement. He began his mission by publishing "The Shepherd’s Rod," a series of tracts calling for a reformation within the Adventist Church to prepare for the literal Kingdom of David. He established the Mount Carmel Center in Texas as a self-sufficient community to gather the "144,000" mentioned in Revelation. He believed that the restoration of the Davidic Kingdom was a necessary precursor to the Second Coming of Christ. His work later provided the theological foundation from which the more radical Branch Davidian sect emerged.