When the head of the church offers to personally baptize, the birth rate jumps 20%.
Things get ugly fast when religion starts to lead people away from acknowledgement of the truth. What is the truth here? What is more important, the hands which bestow the blessing or the God from which it comes? Are people seeking out God or the patriarch?
Does the church’s behavior in this case reinforce the truth or erode it?
Of course, there’s a lighter side to this. From the article
“To have a child baptised by the Patriarch is so very special.”
…
“The babies will be briefly dipped into a gigantic inflatable font after receiving a blessing from his Holiness, Ilia II.
I implore you, dearest reader – whenever you hear the words, “gigantic inflatable font”… RUN!