An appellate judge on Monday reversed the dismissal of a lawsuit brought by a Massachusetts hospital employee who was fired after she refused to take a coronavirus vaccine on the grounds of her religious beliefs.

Rachelle Jeune, who was a surgical technician at UMass Memorial Health’s hospital in Clinton, had sought a religious exemption from taking the vaccine in 2021, arguing that “the body is the temple of God” and “Covid-19 vaccines are not the same as ‘traditional vaccines.’”

“The possibility of Covid-19 genetically altering my body, the body God create in his image, is against my belief,” Jeune wrote in her application for an exemption, according to a copy of the appeals court’s ruling .

The appeals court found that UMass Memorial, which has a policy of providing religious

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