Not Your Average Sunday Service: Religious Sect From The Middle East Perform Ancient Baptism Ritual

[Sally]

Looks like a scene from the Bible. Too bad they can't practice this ritual in the country of their ancestors.



Not your average Sunday service: Religious sect from the Middle East perform ancient baptism ritual in a suburban Australian river
By EMILY CRANE FOR DAILY MAIL AUSTRALIA

PUBLISHED: 22:21 EST, 28 September 2014 | UPDATED: 07:30 EST, 29 September 2014

• They gather in droves every Sunday on the banks of the river to be baptised in long white ceremonial robes.

One by one they immerse themselves, swallow the freshwater and pray.

It's a scene reminiscent of biblical times hundreds of thousands of years ago in the Middle East, but fast forward to 2014 and you'll find it happens on the bank of Nepean River in Penrith, west of Sydney.

Read more:

Religious sect from the Middle East perform ancient baptism ritual in a suburban Australian river Daily Mail Online

 

[Sunni Man]

Drinking that dirty river water is a good way to get parasites. .....

 

[irosie91]

Drinking that dirty river water is a good way to get parasites. .....

depends on the river. not all rivers are polluted. ------the rivers of the middle east were very very polluted in past centuries------and still are in Islamic lands. Cholera remains endemic thruout the middle east in
Islamic lands----also shistosomiasis