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Snow covered the banks of a river near Moscow where several hundred people led by Orthodox priests slid along an icy path on January 19 to cleanse their souls and bodies with the river water.

"When Thou, O Lord, was baptized in [the River] Jordan, the worship of the Trinity was manifested," sang a small choir in Church Slavonic barely audible to onlookers striving to get a glimpse of the activity at the river's edge. A priest dipped a heavy liturgical cross hanging on a rope into the water, making the sign of the cross three times.

Minutes later, sweaters and sheepskin coats were dropped on the snow, and the bravest of the pilgrims hurriedly crossed themselves before plunging into the icy river.

Although unusually mild for a Russian winter, the air temperature hovered around 0 degrees Celsius—far colder than temperatures were imagined to be in the ancient Middle East, where the ceremony to mark the festival of Epiphany had its origins in the first centuries AD.

In western Christianity, Epiphany—a Greek word meaning "manifestation"—marks the visit of the Magi to the infant Jesus, whereas in Orthodoxy, the festival commemorates the baptism of Christ in the River Jordan, when, according to the New Testament, the Holy Spirit descended on Jesus in the form of a dove.

In many traditionally Orthodox countries, Epiphany is celebrated on January 19, 13 days later than in western churches, because most Orthodox churches still calculate the church year according to the Julian calendar.

Orthodox Christians believe that water from any river, pond, tap, or shower becomes Christ's baptismal water on this day.

The faithful celebrated Epiphany with water blessing ceremonies in various places around the world, from Serbia to Siberia to Ethiopia. At the River Jordan, which today separates Israeli-controlled territories from the kingdom of Jordan, worshippers gathered on both sides of the river on the eve of Epiphany, January 18, as Archbishop Phinidectos of the Greek Orthodox Church in Jordan blessed the water on the eastern bank of the river, the Associated Press reported.

In most Russian Orthodox churches, the blessing is performed in large water tanks, and crowds of people line up with jars, bottles, and canisters to fill and take home.

But here in Istra, about 60 kilometers from Moscow, biblical events take on a special significance. Sitting on a hill above the river is a white compound called New Jerusalem, originally built in the 17th century by Patriarch Nikon.

The compound, an Orthodox monastery, contains a replica of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem. Patriarch Nikon called the nearby park Gethsemane—after the garden to which Jesus and his disciples retired after the Last Supper—and renamed the portion of the Istra River that runs through the park River Jordan.

Closed shortly after the revolution, the monastery was bombed during the Second World War. Since 1994 when the monastery was reopened, the community has shared the grounds with the Moscow regional art and history museum.

The river is one of the region's favorite spots for marking the Epiphany celebration, in large part because the water, fed by natural springs, is clean enough to drink.

Like the majority of celebrants on Saturday, Vladimir Likhatsky, an engineer from Moscow, did not dare to dive into the icy water. But his friend Victor, who identified himself only as an assistant to a member of the Russian parliament, said he had swum here the previous night, when the first blessing of the water was performed on the nearby source of the spring.

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January (Web-only) 2002, Vol. 46