Apple fans, like many other fandoms, create what could be called a religion around the company’s products. It’s usually all in good fun though with only a few fans taking their dedication to extreme ends. Now, what would happen if a real religion clashed with the “religion” that forms around products? Let’s ask the Russian Orthodox Church.

A translated report from Interfax-Religion says that Orthodox Christians in Russia are upset over Apple’s logo. Why? They say the bitten apple represents the original sin committed by Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden. It’s apparently offensive to the practitioners of the Russian Orthodox faith.

In response, Russian Orthodox Christians who own Apple products are now covering the logo with a picture of the cross. The symbol is a ward against the original sin that brought death, pain during childbirth, and Jack Chick tracts into the world. By covering up the logo, maybe Russian Orthodox Christians think they can beat back the sinful nature of man as conveyed through technology.

The phenomenon seems to be mostly isolated to the Russian Orthodox faith. I can’t imagine any other Christian groups in other parts of the world doing this. There are, however, practitioners of the Christian faith in America who also believe in Apple being connected with the sinful ways of man. Take for instance a post from Texe Mars on Jesus-is-savior.com:

Consider Apple’s choice for its corporate symbol? The company’s logo is an apple that has had a bite taken out of it. To many occult insiders, this signifies that the eating of the forbidden fruit (symbolically, the apple) by Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden was a good thing. Occultists and New Agers teach that taking a bite out of the apple gave the first two humans knowledge, or gnosis, putting them on the path to self-divinity and godhood.

Apple Computers was cofounded in the 70s by Stephen Jobs, a weird, New Age guru-type, and Steven Wozniak, also an advocate of the Aquarian Age culture. When entrepreneurs Jobs and Wozniak first marketed their earliest, crude personal computer, they put a price tag of $666 on the product. 666! Coincidental–or on purpose? You decide.

We’ve reached out to Apple for comment on the inherent sinful nature of their products and will update if we hear back.

Of course, maybe the Russian Orthodox Church is onto something here. Windows fans have been rallying against Apple for years by saying they’re a soulless organization dedicated to money and nothing else. You know what they say – money is the root of all evil. By that logic, however, Microsoft and every other company on the planet is also evil. I guess we’ll just have to start covering every logo with a cross, star of David or crescent moon from now on.

[h/t: CNET]