The ex-Soviet Georgia doesn’t need virgins for holy conception. Instead, in order to boost population growth, Georgia’s holy father has promised to personally baptize every child born to a family with already two kids. The result? Twenty percent increase already.

From BBC (via my friend Artyom’s Facebook post):

At the end of 2007, in a move to reverse the Caucasian country’s dwindling birth figures, the head of the Georgian Orthodox Church, Patriarch Ilia II, came up with an incentive. He promised to personally baptise any baby born to parents of more than two children.

There was only one catch: the baby had to be born after the initiative was launched.

The results are, in the words of the Georgian Orthodox Church, “a miracle”.

[…]

The country’s birth rate increased by nearly 20% during 2008 – a rate four times faster than the previous year.

Many parents say they took the decision to have another child on the basis of the Patriarch’s incentive.

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