Fake news is disseminated in social networks under the Radio Liberty’s logo. According to the photograph’s caption, 22 people were hospitalised with severe lung inflammation after being baptised in the frozen Mtkvari River. An intoxicated priest was also carried away by the river and rescue teams are still searching for him.

This photo material is falsified and is a forgery. There is no such article published on Radio Liberty’s official website. There are several articles on Radio Liberty’s website about baptism, although none of them contains information vis-à-vis the aforementioned photograph. In addition, similar information cannot be accessed on the websites of any other online media agencies.

In regard to the screenshot attached to the publication, it shows a baptism celebration in 2018 held in the village of Minadze in the Akhaltsikhe municipality where Metropolitan Theodore blessed the Mtkvari River. The screenshot was made from a broadcast from Channel One.

FactCheck reached out to Dato Gamisonia, news editor at Radio Liberty, who confirmed that the photograph is fake and Radio Liberty has never published such information.

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