Orthodox Epiphany Gets Chilly Reception

Believers immerse themselves in a pool outside an Orthodox church in eastern Russia with temperatures around minus-20 degrees Celsius. The Russian Orthodox Church celebrates Epiphany on January 19 in line with the Julian calendar. (Reuters/Yuri Maltsev)

Russians gather to bathe in the Black Sea to mark Epiphany in the southern city of Sochi. (Reuters/Nina Zotina)

A plunge into near-freezing waters as an Orthodox priest blesses the bather on the eve of Epiphany in Pilnitsa, Belarus. (AFP/Viktor Drachev)

A man wades into an icy spring to mark Epiphany, about 45 kilometers east of Almaty, in Kazakhstan. (Reuters/Shamil Zhumatov)

A woman is helped into the waters of the Bazaikha River after midnight, with temperatures about minus-20 degrees Celsius, in a surburb of Krasnoyarsk in Siberia. (Reuters/Ilya Naymushin)

A man bottles holy water from a pool under an Orthodox cross made of ice during a ceremony to celebrate Epiphany in Tyumen, Russia. (Reuters/Eduard Korniyenko)

A midnight dip in the Minsk region of Belarus.

A man reacts as he immerses himself in a pool in Minsk. (Reuters/Vasily Fedosenko)