Whatever Works

Patriarch Ilia II of Georgia

Europe's demographic plunge has been well documented and yet largely ignored by the everyday Italian, Spaniard, German, etc. Many Europeans, content with haute couture and igear, give scant notice to the fact that within a generation or two their continent may look fundamentally different in the aftermath of increased immigration from African nations coupled with a substantially higher birthrate among Muslims. Some observers have used the term "Eurabia" (with good reason) to describe the transformation that is already underway across the pond. Looking to stave the tide, Ilia II, the Orthodox Patriarch of Georgia, came up with a novel idea to entice married couples to be fruitful and multiply. From the BBC:

Two years after having one of the lowest birth rates in the world, Georgia is enjoying something of a baby boom, following an intervention from the country's most senior cleric.

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".