Apple-Blessing Feast/Feast of the Transfiguration (Jablychny Spas), Azdamichy, August 19, 2013. Яблычны Спас, Аздамічы 2013 год.
Falling near the middle of the two-week Dormition great fast, the harvest feast of Jablychny Spas (Apple-Blessing Feast/Feast of the Transfiguration) is celebrated in Orthodox parishes throughout Belarus.
Returning to my friends in the parish of the central Polesian villages of Azdamichy and Tsjerablichy always means coming home; returning each year for Jablychny Spas is always the best homecoming. This was the seventh year in a row I have celebrated Jablychny Spas in Azdamichy. While acknowledging that the feast is a major occasion in other parishes, I cannot conceive of missing the celebration in Azdamichy. It is partly from sharing the joy and relief at the harvest felt by these village’s smallholders — these stalwart, hardworking people who have allowed me to photograph them over the years, whose children and grandchildren I have photographed as they’ve grown up. It is partly from my reverence for, and sharing of, these people’s steadfast Christian faith and for their commitment to pass on their faith and deep traditions to their children and grandchildren.
At the end of the five-hour service, parishioners circle the church in the churchyard, laying out their early apples and pears for Father Aljaksandr to bless. In his first circuit, with his youngest son preceding him as cross-bearer, Father Aljaksandr censes the fruit. In his second circuit, with his middle son joining as water-carrier, Father Aljaksandr blesses the fruit with water.
