Apple-Blessing Feast, Azdamichy 2012. Яблычны Спас, Аздамічы 2012 год.
Apple-Blessing is an early harvest rite, observed on August 19, Transfiguration Day in the Orthodox calendar. In memory of children who have died young, women avoid eating new apples or other newly-ripe fruit before the blessing. It is a traditional Belarusan belief that deferring the eating of apples permits deceased children to receive the first apples of the season from the Lord in heaven. Once the priest has made his first two of three rounds of the churchyard to bless the apples, parents and grandparents enjoy letting young children celebrate with an apple from the basket.
The Apple-Blessing church service in the central Polesian parish of the Holy Trinity (the villages of Azdamichy and Tsjerablichy) is always a joyous occasion and one of the most-heavily attended feasts during the year.
