Orthodox priests in the Russian city of Tver felt that their residents were becoming unruly. Casual sex and alcohol were eating up the city inside out and Father Alexander Goryachev, along with local bishop Metropolitan Savva decided something had to be done about it.
So on September 11th, which marked the eve of Russian Sobriety day, the church decided to take things up a notch– by sprinkling holy water from a plane
Father Goryachev and Bishop Savva sprayed 18 gallons of holy water on the ‘sinful’ city of Tver in order to “protect the city afflictions befalling it, from all accidents and social adversity”, as told in a statement by the Bishop.
This aerial play has been going on for about 13 years, though this was the first time they decided to ‘religiously raid’ with holy water. They had been getting rid of the sins and malice from the city just by uttering prayers and carrying the ‘Inexhaustible Chalice’ on board the plane. Father Gorbachev takes great pride in this ritual as he says that these aerial ‘blessings’ have been largely successful pointing out to this one instance when a man gave up drinking once he saw the plane overhead.
This year though, they felt the city needed saving from all the “drunkenness and fornication” and decided to pull off this religious stunt. That’s why they got 70 liters of holy water to get rid of the city’s ‘spiritual sickness’.
Asking them about the people who were laughing at all this and calling their bluff, Father Goryachev told Tver News that– “What is the joke? That we’re trying to help people get rid of diseases? We promote stopping alcohol consumption, drugs, and fornication — is this laughable?”.
“Let them laugh and we will do our job,” he ended.
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