Jerusalem, Israel - YAIR Cohen is one of the last of the Holy Land's smallest sect, and does not want to let the bloodline die with him.
Facing extinction on the one hand, or grave genetic risks on the other, he did what perhaps no other Samaritan has done in 3000 years - turned a long way from home to find a bride.
Four years ago, Cohen, now 45, returned to Mount Gerizim near the West Bank city of Nablus with a blonde, blue-eyed, fair-skinned 18-year-old Ukrainian woman. Like any budding groom, he was nervous as he took her to meet his parents.
But Cohen had an extra dose of the jitters. His father's blessing would mean much more than his happiness. It would also be an endorsement of a new and critical way out of the Samaritans' chromosomal decay.
Exiled, massacred, converted, then exiled again, the Samaritans' tortured history had by last year left them confined to two small pockets, one in the working-class town of Holon, near Tel Aviv, and the other high on their most sacred site at Mount Gerizim, which their people throughout the ages have revered as their Jerusalem.
There were 720 Samaritans in total in 2005, comprised of four families. The figure was up from 350 about 40 years ago - and therein lay a significant part of the problem.
The rapid rate of breeding among a small gene pool had led to genetic complications and meant no new Samaritan union could be endorsed without the approval of a geneticist at Israel's Tel Ha Shomer hospital.
Just as troubling was the fact that the community was running low on women.
"I didn't want to have damaged children," Cohen said. "My two brothers are deaf and dumb, and I was not going to take the risk myself.
"I thought about if for a while, but it was really not too difficult a decision. We need a future and I am lucky I have found one."
God chose the Ukraine for him over all the countries in the world, he said. The Lord also led him to a small town near the Ukrainian capital, Kiev, where he was introduced to his future wife, Alexandra, and her parents.
Their marriage was quickly approved on Alexandra's side. Next stop was the Samaritan High Priest - Cohen's father, Elaza Ben Tzedakher Ben Itzhak Avraham.
"I told them they would have to wait six months before they could marry," the elderly priest said from an anteroom in his storm-swept Arab-style villa on the summit of Mount Gerizim.
"That way, we could see what her intentions were and whether she was pure."
Also at issue for the priest was the fact that the Samaritans had maintained their distinctive ethnicity despite many challenges over the centuries.
"But this had to change," he said. "It was a reality.
"There were once Samaritans in Egypt and Syria, but they finished several centuries ago."
After the period of grace, the union was officially endorsed, and according to the Samaritan records, Cohen became the first of his people to marry a non-Samaritan or Israeli Jew since the time of the pre-biblical Assyrian conquest of the Holy Lands. Over the past decade, several Samaritan men have married Jewish Israeli women ofvarious backgrounds - the key Jewish beliefs are very similar to theirs - but never a complete outsider.
Cohen's precedent has since been followed by three other Samaritan men who returned from the Ukraine with brides.
Most people's knowledge of the Samaritans starts and finishes with a thirsty Jesus's favourable run-in with a group of Samaritan women.
They gave him water in a gesture that spawned the parable of the Good Samaritan. Later he was said to have healed 10 lepers. Only one, a Samaritan, returned to thank him.
But the halcyon days of the Samaritans pre-dated Jesus by half a millennium. They emerged about the time the first Jewish temple fell, and were persecuted by the Assyrians at about the time of the Babylonian exile of the Jews. Throughout history, Samaritans have claimed their beliefs were the true religion of the ancient Israelites.
They read from an ancient Torah, revere all the Hebrew prophets and observe the Sabbath. However, Samaritans believe in resurrection and reject Jewish laws.
And they practise a strict interpretation of biblical doctrines about menstruation. Samaritan women must stay in a separate room for up to eight days after the end of their menstrual cycle, during which time they must have no contact with their husbands. Alexandra Cohen, now 22, said her marriage had been difficult. She is not allowed to work and says she sometimes struggles to fill her days.
"But I love my husband," she says in semi-fluent Hebrew. "He is agood man, and he treats me very well."
Aside from the six-month screening process, she said conversion had been easy, requiring only observance of Samaritan beliefs and customs.
Conversion to Judaism, on the other hand, can take up to seven years of religious instruction with a rabbi.
In Holon, near Tel Aviv, where the remainder of the Samaritans live, one community member said there had been widespread acceptance of the new Ukrainian brides and an impatient wait to see the offspring produced by the new Samaritans and their husbands' ancient bloodlines.
But a problem emerged that no one talks about publicly. None of the four women have become pregnant and doctors have no explanation.
Asked if he wanted children, Yair Cohen nodded firmly and replied: "Very much." Alexandra was quick to add her support.
His two mute brothers sat listlessly nearby as their sister-in-law and the Samaritans' great hope stood in front of plaques bearing the age-old script of her husband's forefathers.
Even with the injection of the newcomers from Europe, the Samaritans' future still seems destined to remain uncertain.