2023-08-19 12:04:24
What does the feast of the Transfiguration of the Lord mean?
On August 19, on the day of the feast of the Transfiguration of the Lord, the Church remembers how Christ first revealed His Divine essence to the three disciples: “And His face shone like the sun, and His clothes became white like light.” Seeing the Transfiguration of Jesus, the disciples of Christ received a sign, a sign that Jesus is the Son of God. Icons and paintings dedicated to the Transfiguration convey exactly this moment: Jesus in a halo of radiance, which is called the “light of Tabor”, since it is believed that the Transfiguration took place on Mount Tabor.
“Transfiguration of Our Lord”. Titian. 1560
Why is the holiday called Apple Savior?
Historians believe that the very event of the Transfiguration of the Lord, described in the Gospel, took place not in August, but in February according to our calendar. But the Church in Armenia and Cappadocia (now the territory of Turkey) established the celebration of the Transfiguration in August in order to replace the pagan festival dedicated to the goddess of love and fertility. And the holiday took root. In Greece, he supplanted the Bacchus festivities, also coinciding with the ripening of the grape harvest. In Russia, which borrowed the holiday from Greece, grapes were replaced with more familiar apples. Hence the popular name of the holiday in honor of the Savior – Apple Spas. So the Gospel event of the Transfiguration of Jesus turned out to be combined with a prayer of thanksgiving, which was read in honor of God’s giving us “the fruits of the earth.”
Unique custom in an ancient church
On Apple Savior, a church in the village of Terebun, Brest region, celebrates its patronal feast. A unique tradition of consecrating the gifts of gardens has been preserved here. On the eve, parishioners find branches with several branches on the trees and string apples and pears, and even grapes, on each bough. With these “branches” they come to the festive liturgy. During the prayer service for water, when the priest sprinkles the fruits with holy water, the parishioners try to raise their branch as high as possible in order to collect more holy water for the fruits brought on the “Rogulin”. And the temple turns into a fabulous garden!
Photo from sb.by
Church history
The village of Terebun, located on the right bank of the Lesnaya, not far from its confluence with the Western Bug, has been known since the 14th century. In 1536, by royal decree, Terebun was transferred to the possession of a refugee from the Moscow principality, Ivan Shuisky-Gubka. According to the well-known Brest local historian Anatoly Gladyshchuk, a love story played a role in the escape.
The Shuisky princely family descended from Rurik himself, at the beginning of the 16th century it was one of the most powerful “surnames” in Moscow. In 1526, the “sovereign of all Rus'” Vasily III married a second time, to a Lithuanian Elena Glinskaya, the daughter of Vasily Glinsky, who at one time was the headman of the Berestey, it is possible that Elena herself was born in Berestye. Our compatriot gave birth to two sons to the Moscow ruler, including John, who went down in history as Ivan the Terrible. But in 1533, Vasily III died, leaving his wife and the “council” of seven noble boyars, including the head of the family, Vasily Shuisky, as guardians of his young son. True, Elena quickly threw off the “seven boyars” and actually began to rule herself, right up to her poisoning of the Moscow boyar opposition.
And where does love and Terebun? According to one version, in the retinue of Elena Glinskaya was the beautiful Marina Bogovitinova, the offspring of one of the richest families at that time in the Beresteyshchyna and Podlyashye. And the nephew of Vasily Shuisky, Ivan Gubka, fell in love with a charmer. But soon after Elena Glinskaya took power into her own hands, the persecution of the Shuiskys began, and Ivan decided to flee to his beloved homeland. But this is only one of the versions.
Be that as it may, Ivan Shuisky-Gubka settled in Terebuni, after him the second husband of Marina Shuiskaya Gnoevsky owned the estate, and then successively the sons of Marina Manuil and Ivan.
The latter built in 1609 the Church of the Transfiguration of the Savior and the family castle. Moreover, local residents from generation to generation pass on the legend that the temple was built from the brick of the palace of one of the Radziwills, who played cards with Shuisky. The rector of the church, father Alexander Krechko, confirmed the existence of the legend: “They also say that the parishioners brought stones in their bosoms, several at a time.”
Boiler-Boyarskaya. Transfiguration Church
The abbot has no doubt that there was an underground passage between the church and the palace. In general, legends about underground passages, mostly unconfirmed, exist throughout Belarus: these are “moves” between Nesvizh and Mir, between Kossovo and Ruzhany… But Fr. Alexander has no doubts about the existence of the passage: “During the repair of the church in the late 1990s, an entrance to some kind of underground passage was discovered. The blow from there was incredible, the thrust was crazy. I had to plug this “hole”. By the way, archaeological research near the church has never been carried out. And about how long it was (some sources say about one and a half kilometers) and where it did not lead so far, there are remains of the earthen fortifications of the castle of the 17th century, one can only guess.
Another not fully unraveled mystery of the church is that the floor logs were laid directly on the ground during construction, which is unique for the practice of building Orthodox churches in Belarus. Father Alexander is sure that there are burials in the ground, and a cast-iron slab with the coat of arms of the Shuiskys (probably Ivan’s “fundator”) “built-in” into the floor of the shrine serves as confirmation. However, this practice existed in Moscow, during the burial of Moscow princes, tsars and their closest relatives. And the Shuisky princes were “Rurikovichs”, they also had in their time the specific principality of Shui. Moreover, for some time (1606-1610) the Russian tsar was during the Time of Troubles Vasily Shuisky, albeit a distant, but a relative of the owner of Terebuni. After the deposition, he was handed over to the Polish authorities, and the road of the honorary prisoner probably passed from Moscow to Warsaw through Berestye (the ashes of the former monarch went to Moscow in 1635 by the same route). Did Ivan Shuisky, bequeathing to bury himself in the church he founded and install a tombstone, emphasize his “royal” claims?
Photo from sb.by
Be that as it may, but elegant from the aesthetic side, the temple, prayed for centuries, still stands today. Initially, it was Orthodox, then it was Uniate, since the middle of the 19th century, again and until now Orthodox. And not once in its almost 415 years did the service stop there. There were many worthy priests among its abbots. For example, about. Sergei Strahovich (since 1906), who was the first to raise the question of the proper honoring of the memory of the Martyr Athanasius in the city of Brest. Ancient relics are still kept in the temple, including the icon “Protection of the Virgin” (1751), which parishioners revere as miraculous, the icon “Vilna Martyrs” (XIX century) and others. The church itself is included in the list of historical and cultural values of Belarus.
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