Media Stink Over Toilet-Paper 'Rasputin'
Fri Mar 14, 7:44 AM ET  
VILNIUS (Reuters) - Lithuanian President Rolandas Paksas has flown into a media storm over his faith in a mystic who wraps people in toilet paper to cure their ills.

Paksas' claims of being a "believer" in mystic Lena Lolisvili has sparked uproar in the Catholic former Soviet country, which is sensitive about its image in the outside world after being invited to join the European Union (news - web sites) and NATO (news - web sites) in 2004.

Local media have dubbed Lolisvili Lithuania's "Rasputin," after the Siberian mystic who wielded influence over Russia's Czar Nicholas II and Czarina Alexandra in the early 1900s because of his apparent ability to treat their son's hemophilia.

"Lithuania risks becoming the laughing stock of the world for the next five years," its largest newspaper, Lietuvos Rytas, said in an editorial on Friday.

Paksas won a January election after a campaign that included stunts like guiding a small plane under a bridge.

"It is time for the president to realize he is no longer a pilot flying under bridges but the leader of a democratic state," the paper said.

Lolisvili, an ethnic Georgian who claims God tells her the future and energizes toilet paper she then wraps around her patients, told Paksas in 1996 he would become president.

Paksas has said Lolisvili helped him when he was ill, but has never given details of his treatment.

She was a guest of honor at his inauguration last month, a move critics decried as a throwback to the dark ages.

"This is clearly the work of the devil," said Cardinal Audrys Backis.

Paksas called in a public address on Thursday for tolerance of his "personal affairs," but Lietuvos Rytas said: "Such 'personal affairs' of Paksas compromise Lithuania in the eyes of the civilized world."

I hope she at least uses a new roll of TP!  :P