c. 2000 Religion News Service
JORDAN RIVER, Israeli-Occupied West Bank _ Garbed in a loose white robe, 38-year-old Anne Maniuk waded into the grimy brown river full of reeds, dunked her head under, and emerged with a great smile on her face and hands lifted heavenward: “In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit,”said the teacher in her native Russian language, her short blond hair tied into a white kerchief, now dripping wet.
At the same time, a nun splashed in the murky water, trailing a heavy long black habit and headdress. Nearby, men sporting long hair and beards, muscles rippling through skimpy T-shirts, swam a few strokes into the center of the river, before returning to shore.
The more timid, or well dressed, meanwhile, crowded the water’s edge to receive a blessing and a splash of droplets from an Orthodox priest, or scoop up a sample of the holy water in a plastic bottle to carry back home.
Every year, Orthodox Christians around the world celebrate the baptism of Jesus on Jan. 18. In some parts of Russia, Christians cut through the ice of frozen streams and rivers, in order to make a ritual dip in commemoration of the date, said Slava Molitvin, a Russian-Israeli tour guide, here with a group of 18 pilgrims.”For us, this water is not so cold,”he said.
Still, a dip in the Jordan River site, revered by many as the actual place of Jesus’ baptism 2,000 years ago, has a special meaning for pilgrims. And on Tuesday (Jan. 18), several thousand Orthodox Christians, gathered here for millennial year celebrations from as far away as Greece, Russia and the Ukraine, came to view the river of the Bible and sample its waters first hand.”I had imagined a big river. I was surprised to see how small. and dirty it was,”confessed Maniuk as she stood on the river bank for nearly two hours in prayerful anticipation, singing hymns and uttering prayers with a group of seven other women friends. “Still, this is the water of Jesus Christ,”so it can’t be really dirty, said the woman, who saved her earnings for two years in order to make the month-long pilgrimage to the Holy Land.
Finally, the signal came. An Orthodox priest descended to the river’s edge, threw a flower-decorated cross into the water while simultaneously releasing a dove into the air. Maniuk and her friends took the plunge. They held hands and sang in the water. They embraced each other. “It was wonderful,”Maniuk said after emerging barefoot and dripping wet a few minutes later.
As far as appearances go, this baptismal site on the Israeli-occupied West Bank side of the Jordan River, has probably known better days. Approaching the river from ancient Jericho, the remains of a enormous monastery courtyard lies in ruins. Here, pilgrims en route to the Jordan must have rested from the heat of the desert under the shade of date palms. The date trees are now dead stumps enabling soldiers from a nearby army post to scan the area which lies along the border with Jordan. Signs warning of minefields are posted along the monastery walls.
At this southernmost point of the Jordan near its outlet to the Dead Sea, the river water today is largely a cesspool of modern agricultural sewage dumped by Israeli kibbutzim far upstream.
Just one set of narrow concrete steps leads down to the water, creating huge human traffic jams on holidays like this one, when Palestinian Christians, Orthodox clergy and foreign tourists all converge at once.
One such visitor is a Russian Orthodox priest, Father Germanos, from the Russian city of Tula, about 200 miles south of Moscow. This is his seventh visit to the site, he said, adding that on his last trip in the fall his finger was healed of rheumatism when he dipped in the water. “I take the water in bottles back to Russia,”he said,”And this way I bring the holiness of Jesus and the river back to the people there. People use the water to clean their apartments of evil spirits, and they even drink it if they are sick.” (BEGIN OPTIONAL TRIM _ STORY MAY END HERE)
As far as Father Germanos is concerned, there is no doubt in his mind that the place where Jesus was baptized by John the Baptist is right here at this very site.
Many European and American pilgrims, however, prefer to take the dip at the Israeli-developed”Yardenit”pilgrim site about 100 miles further north. There, where the Sea of Galilee flows into the Jordan, the water is considerably cleaner and access is not through a militarized border zone.
Near here, meanwhile, the government of Jordan has recently developed its own baptismal site on its side of the Jordan River, in an area known as Wadi Al Karrar. The site lies alongside a small fresh water spring and an ancient monastery. It is here that Pope John Paul II will visit during his March tour of the Holy Land.
Not to be outdone, however, Israel is planning to upgrade this facility on the West Bank side of the Jordan River. The multimillion dollar improvements will include a better access road to the river, as well as modern amenities such as toilets, say Israeli military administration officials who control the area.
Still, given the proximity to the border, it’s unlikely the minefields surrounding the old monastery will be removed or the military jeeps that circulate here endlessly will give way to easy tourism access. Nor is it likely the water quality of the Jordan River itself will be improved.
For the moment, however, pilgrims like Father Germanos, remain undisturbed by the water’s brown tinge. “I myself have drunk the water on three different occasions,”he said.”In the Bible it says that even if you drink poison and you believe, nothing will happen.”
DEA END FLETCHER
