Apple-Blessing Festival (part I), Azdamichy 2010/Яблычны Спас (частка I), Аздамічы 2010 год.
Apple-Blessing, observed on August 19, Transfiguration Day in the Orthodox calendar, is an early harvest festival and falls during the middle of the Orthodox Dormition fast. In memory of children who have died young, women traditionally must not eat new apples or other newly-ripe fruit before the blessing of apples; it is a traditional Belarusan belief that deferring the eating of apples permits deceased children to receive apples from the Lord in heaven first.
The Apple-Blessing church service in the central Polesian village of Azdamichy is one of the parish’s most important moments in the cycle of the year. Here Father Aljaksandr anoints parishioners’ foreheads with holy oil.
