JERUSALEM (CNN) -- Israeli police arrested eight members of a U.S. Christian cult Sunday, saying the group was planning to carry out violent acts in Jerusalem ahead of the millennium.

Eight adults and six children belonging to the Denver-based apocalyptic cult Concerned Christians were detained and accused of planning to provoke a bloody shootout by opening fire on Israeli police, believing that this catastrophic act would hasten the second coming of Christ.

Brig. Gen. Elihu Ben-Onn, Israel's national police spokesman, said the group "planned to carry out violent and extreme acts in the streets of Jerusalem at the end of 1999 to start the process of bringing Jesus back to life."

Seventy members of the cult disappeared from Denver in October and were believed to be living in the Jerusalem area.

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The group's leader, Monte Kim Miller, who has foretold his own death on the streets of Jerusalem sometime in 1999, was not in Israel, police said.

The police statement said the cult members had not been working and were living on their life savings and on contributions received from abroad.

Police said they were arrested in their apartments in well-to-do western Jerusalem suburbs and taken into custody for questioning. Their apartments and vehicles had been searched.

"The detention of members of the cult was carried out to protect Israeli society and its different communities as well as members of the cult itself who are operating in blind belief of their leader abroad," the statement said.

The cult members will likely be deported back to the United States.

Israeli authorities said that police would not interfere with "freedom of religion and worship during the millennium observances," but stressed that they would stop any attempt by "extremist groups" to interfere.