MOSCOW – More than 100 Russian Orthodox followers have been hospitalized after drinking contaminated holy water!

Local residents of Irkutsk drank water from wells in and around their Russian Orthodox church last Tuesday. Any water consumed on the day of Epiphany is considered to be holy.

However, 204 people required medical treatment, and 117 were forced to be hospitalized after being afflicted with intestinal pain!

It was discovered that the water could be traced back to a stagnant lake, although officials have yet to say what specifically in the water made the churchgoers sick.

Epiphany is the Eastern Orthodoxy celebration of the revelation that God made man in his own image, i.e. the baptism of Jesus in the Jordan River by St. John the Baptist.