The Epiphany, celebrated by Eastern Christians on January 19, marks the baptism of Jesus Christ by John the Precursor in the Jordan River.
Being innocent, Jesus Christ had no need of being baptized, but the act of Lord’s Baptism, as Orthodox songs say, ‘drowned the sins of the whole world in the waters of the Jordan” and made water holy.
The act of baprism is seen as his manifestation to the world as the Son of God. According to tradition, the baptism of Jesus also marked one of only two occasions when all three Persons of the Trinity manifested themselves simultaneously to humanity: God the Father by speaking through the clouds, God the Son being baptized in the river, and God the Holy Spirit in the shape of a dove descending from heaven.
The Orthodox Church conducts the rite of the Great Sanctification of the Water on that day (or the eve before). The faithful celebrate the great feast by keeping vigil at night, traditional blessing of water and bathing rites.
Our ancestors had a tradition to baptize their children on this day.
On Epiphany, it is often severe cold. Today the temperature in Minsk fell to -8.
Participants in the ritual may dip themselves three times under the water, honoring the Holy Trinity, to symbolically wash away their sins from the past year, and to experience a sense of spiritual rebirth. If necessary, holes are cut in the ice of lakes and rivers, often in the shape of the cross.
According to Orthodox believers, on January 19 water in rivers, ponds and wells becomes holy and curative.
See Belsat TV photo report from Lysaya Gara near St.Elizabeth monastery in Minsk:
photos by Vyachaslau Radzimich, belsat.eu
