CHURCH CEREMONY ON VOLGA
CRITICISM BY “PRAVDA” MOSCOW, February 20. In temperatures well below freezing point, priests of the Orthodox Russian Church in Saratov, 450 miles southeast of Moscow, conducted a “Jordan" ceremony and blessed their flock, who were plunged naked into a hole in the thick ice of the Volga. The aim of the ceremony was to cure people of disease. The official Communist newspaper “Pravda," denouncing this custom, said that most of those who took part in the ceremony were in hospital. One man, aged 55, caught pneumonia, an old woman became deaf, and a three-year-old girl contracted inflammation of the lungs. - . „ “Pravda” said: “Not only the pious witnessed the ceremony. Lovers of pornography appeared on the Volga's banks. Photographers bristling with cameras shot the more exciting moments of the ablutions and later sold their pictures in the streets. This ceremony should make the Saratov Soviet officials blush with shame.”
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Press, Volume LXXXV, Issue 25735, 22 February 1949, Page 5
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152CHURCH CEREMONY ON VOLGA Press, Volume LXXXV, Issue 25735, 22 February 1949, Page 5
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