Warm weather threatens Epiphany ice water plunges for Russia's Orthodox Christians

MOSCOW (AP) — Thousands of Russians celebrating the Orthodox Christian feast day of Epiphany, where worshippers bathe in the icy waters of frozen lakes and rivers, have been forced to cancel their traditional ceremonies due to unusually warm winter temperatures.

Across Russia, the devout and the daring celebrate Epiphany on Jan. 19 by immersing themselves in frigid water through holes cut through the ice of lakes and rivers, imitating the baptism of Jesus Christ in the River Jordan.

Many extol the practice as strengthening both the soul and the body, although rescue workers are on hand in case anyone succumbs to the heart-racing shock of the icy immersion.

But unusually warm temperatures have prompted local emergency services in some regions to cancel events, saying the ice is too thin for worshippers to bathe safely.

Ceremonies have been canceled in areas as distant as the southern Russian region of Saratov and Karelia, almost 1000 miles away on the country’s border with Finland.

Other regions have vowed to carry on with their ceremonies, although melting ice is not the only concern. In the Russian city of Anapa, officials said that the ritual would be held at its traditional place on the Black Sea, despite the thousands of tons of oil that fell into the nearby Kerch Strait on Dec. 15 when two Russian oil tankers sank in bad weather.

Temperatures across Russia have been increasing over the past quarter of a century in line with global warming, says meteorologist Leonid Starkov, who works for Moscow’s Gismeteo.

“A large part of Russia will be warm for these Epiphany celebrations. The average temperature significantly exceeds the norm,” he said. “We are already seeing a thaw in St. Petersburg. In Moscow, we are seeing a thaw. And in southern Russia, the temperature is already reaching 5 degrees or 10 degrees Celsius (50 degrees Fahrenheit).”

Officials have reacted so far by creating alternative sites for bathers, often in smaller rivers and lakes. The water is still cold enough to send some worshippers scurrying to wrap themselves in large towels, while onlookers watch on wrapped in scarves, hats and coats.

But Russians will need to adapt to a future where extreme or unseasonable weather is more common, says Starkov — at both ends of the spectrum.

“Out of the six Epiphany celebrations over the past 25 years where the temperature was colder than usual, five were very cold. Extremes in the weather are increasing,” Starkov said.

A priest makes a religion service while blessing the icy water before celebrating the Orthodox Epiphany near the St. Serafimovsky Monastery on Russian Island in Russian far east port Vladivostok, Russia, Sunday, Jan. 19, 2025.

Participants of a religion procession walk to bless the icy water before celebrating the Orthodox Epiphany near the St. Serafimovsky Monastery on Russian Island in Russian far east port Vladivostok, Russia, Sunday, Jan. 19, 2025. (AP Photo)

A woman plunge as a cross is reflected in icy water celebrating the Orthodox Epiphany in the Stroginskaya floodplain in Moscow, Russia, on Sunday, Jan. 19, 2025. (AP Photo/Alexander Zemlianichenko)

A man steps down to plunge as a cross is reflected in icy water before celebrating the Orthodox Epiphany in the Stroginskaya floodplain in Moscow, Russia, on Sunday, Jan. 19, 2025. (AP Photo/Alexander Zemlianichenko)

People plunge in icy water to celebrate the Orthodox Epiphany near the St. Serafimovsky Monastery on Russian Island in Russian far east port Vladivostok, Russia, Sunday, Jan. 19, 2025. (AP Photo)

People plunge in icy water to celebrate the Orthodox Epiphany near the St. Serafimovsky Monastery on Russian Island in Russian far east port Vladivostok, Russia, Sunday, Jan. 19, 2025. (AP Photo)

A woman pauses while plunging herself in icy waters to celebrate the Orthodox Epiphany at the Izmailovsky Kremlin in Moscow, Russia, Saturday, Jan. 18, 2025. (AP Photo/Pavel Bednyakov)

Men exit a pond after plunging themselves in icy waters to celebrate the Orthodox Epiphany at the Izmailovsky Kremlin in Moscow, Russia, Saturday, Jan. 18, 2025. (AP Photo/Pavel Bednyakov)

WASHINGTON (AP) — Becky Pepper-Jackson finished third in the discus throw in West Virginia last year though she was in just her first year of high school. Now a 15-year-old sophomore, Pepper-Jackson is aware that her upcoming season could be her last.

West Virginia has banned transgender girls like Pepper-Jackson from competing in girls and women's sports, and is among the more than two dozen states with similar laws. Though the West Virginia law has been blocked by lower courts, the outcome could be different at the conservative-dominated Supreme Court, which has allowed multiple restrictions on transgender people to be enforced in the past year.

The justices are hearing arguments Tuesday in two cases over whether the sports bans violate the Constitution or the landmark federal law known as Title IX that prohibits sex discrimination in education. The second case comes from Idaho, where college student Lindsay Hecox challenged that state's law.

Decisions are expected by early summer.

President Donald Trump's Republican administration has targeted transgender Americans from the first day of his second term, including ousting transgender people from the military and declaring that gender is immutable and determined at birth.

Pepper-Jackson has become the face of the nationwide battle over the participation of transgender girls in athletics that has played out at both the state and federal levels as Republicans have leveraged the issue as a fight for athletic fairness for women and girls.

“I think it’s something that needs to be done,” Pepper-Jackson said in an interview with The Associated Press that was conducted over Zoom. “It’s something I’m here to do because ... this is important to me. I know it’s important to other people. So, like, I’m here for it.”

She sat alongside her mother, Heather Jackson, on a sofa in their home just outside Bridgeport, a rural West Virginia community about 40 miles southwest of Morgantown, to talk about a legal fight that began when she was a middle schooler who finished near the back of the pack in cross-country races.

Pepper-Jackson has grown into a competitive discus and shot put thrower. In addition to the bronze medal in the discus, she finished eighth among shot putters.

She attributes her success to hard work, practicing at school and in her backyard, and lifting weights. Pepper-Jackson has been taking puberty-blocking medication and has publicly identified as a girl since she was in the third grade, though the Supreme Court's decision in June upholding state bans on gender-affirming medical treatment for minors has forced her to go out of state for care.

Her very improvement as an athlete has been cited as a reason she should not be allowed to compete against girls.

“There are immutable physical and biological characteristic differences between men and women that make men bigger, stronger, and faster than women. And if we allow biological males to play sports against biological females, those differences will erode the ability and the places for women in these sports which we have fought so hard for over the last 50 years,” West Virginia's attorney general, JB McCuskey, said in an AP interview. McCuskey said he is not aware of any other transgender athlete in the state who has competed or is trying to compete in girls or women’s sports.

Despite the small numbers of transgender athletes, the issue has taken on outsize importance. The NCAA and the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committees banned transgender women from women's sports after Trump signed an executive order aimed at barring their participation.

The public generally is supportive of the limits. An Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll conducted in October 2025 found that about 6 in 10 U.S. adults “strongly” or “somewhat” favored requiring transgender children and teenagers to only compete on sports teams that match the sex they were assigned at birth, not the gender they identify with, while about 2 in 10 were “strongly” or “somewhat” opposed and about one-quarter did not have an opinion.

About 2.1 million adults, or 0.8%, and 724,000 people age 13 to 17, or 3.3%, identify as transgender in the U.S., according to the Williams Institute at the UCLA School of Law.

Those allied with the administration on the issue paint it in broader terms than just sports, pointing to state laws, Trump administration policies and court rulings against transgender people.

"I think there are cultural, political, legal headwinds all supporting this notion that it’s just a lie that a man can be a woman," said John Bursch, a lawyer with the conservative Christian law firm Alliance Defending Freedom that has led the legal campaign against transgender people. “And if we want a society that respects women and girls, then we need to come to terms with that truth. And the sooner that we do that, the better it will be for women everywhere, whether that be in high school sports teams, high school locker rooms and showers, abused women’s shelters, women’s prisons.”

But Heather Jackson offered different terms to describe the effort to keep her daughter off West Virginia's playing fields.

“Hatred. It’s nothing but hatred,” she said. "This community is the community du jour. We have a long history of isolating marginalized parts of the community.”

Pepper-Jackson has seen some of the uglier side of the debate on display, including when a competitor wore a T-shirt at the championship meet that said, “Men Don't Belong in Women's Sports.”

“I wish these people would educate themselves. Just so they would know that I’m just there to have a good time. That’s it. But it just, it hurts sometimes, like, it gets to me sometimes, but I try to brush it off,” she said.

One schoolmate, identified as A.C. in court papers, said Pepper-Jackson has herself used graphic language in sexually bullying her teammates.

Asked whether she said any of what is alleged, Pepper-Jackson said, “I did not. And the school ruled that there was no evidence to prove that it was true.”

The legal fight will turn on whether the Constitution's equal protection clause or the Title IX anti-discrimination law protects transgender people.

The court ruled in 2020 that workplace discrimination against transgender people is sex discrimination, but refused to extend the logic of that decision to the case over health care for transgender minors.

The court has been deluged by dueling legal briefs from Republican- and Democratic-led states, members of Congress, athletes, doctors, scientists and scholars.

The outcome also could influence separate legal efforts seeking to bar transgender athletes in states that have continued to allow them to compete.

If Pepper-Jackson is forced to stop competing, she said she will still be able to lift weights and continue playing trumpet in the school concert and jazz bands.

“It will hurt a lot, and I know it will, but that’s what I’ll have to do,” she said.

Heather Jackson, left, and Becky Pepper-Jackson pose for a photograph outside of the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington, Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)

Heather Jackson, left, and Becky Pepper-Jackson pose for a photograph outside of the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington, Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)

Becky Pepper-Jackson poses for a photograph outside of the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington, Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)

The Supreme Court stands is Washington, Friday, Jan. 9, 2026. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

FILE - Protestors hold signs during a rally at the state capitol in Charleston, W.Va., on March 9, 2023. (AP Photo/Chris Jackson, file)