Apple-Blessing Feast (part I), Azdamichy 2011. Яблычны Спас (частка I), Аздамічы 2011 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, people 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 apples from the Lord in heaven first.
The Apple-Blessing church service in the central Polesian parish of the Holy Trinity (the villages of Azdamichy and Tsjerablichy) is one of the parish’s most important feasts in the cycle of the year. This was the fifth time I have attended the Apple-Blessing feast in Azdamichy. The celebration is my favorite photographic subject in Belarus.
