Presentation of Jesus at the Temple (Candlemas, Feast of the Purification of the Virgin, Meeting of the Lord), Azdamichy 2015.
Candlemas, celebrated in Western churches on or about February 2 and in old-style (Julian Calendar) Orthodox churches on February 15, is unusual in that it has both a Christic and a Marian focus. The lighting of beeswax candles, symbolizing the light of both Christ and Mary, is an essential part of the rite in all Christian celebrations, regardless of confession. Key Gospel readings connected with the celebration of Candlemas in the west include Matthew 5:17-19 (“Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfill…”) and Luke 2:29-32 (Simeon’s grateful words to the Lord — the Nunc dimittis). In the Eastern Orthodox rite the Gospel passage is Luke 2:22-40.
Candlemas is one of the twelve great feasts in Eastern Orthodox churches. In Belarus the Orthodox feast is called The Meeting of the Lord (Sretsjen’nje Haspodnjaje – Срэценьне Гасподняе) or, in a more vernacular and pre-Christian way, Day of Thunder (Hramnitsy – Грамніцы). The feast marks three moments: the presentation of Christ in the temple; the end of the Old Testament period of a woman’s post-partum purification; and the meeting of Christ and Simeon, to whom the Holy Ghost had said he would not die until he had beheld the Christ. By popular, pre-Christian tradition the feast, falling as it does midway between the winter solstice and vernal equinox, marks the meeting of winter and spring and the thunder often heard in pre-spring rainstorms at this time.
Срэценьне Гасподняе (Стрэчаньне, Грамніцы), Аздамічы 2015 г.
