The Tradition of Pilgrimage And Worship of the "Blue Spring"

The Tradition of Pilgrimage And Worship of the "Blue Spring" is practiced during the national holiday of  Makaviej  (Maccabees), also known as the Savior of the Honey Feast Day, and it is linked to the veneration of the Holy Cross, Our Lady and the Holy Martyrs, seven Maccabees brothers.

The celebration, which is annually held on August 14, attracts almost all the people of different ages and social groups, who live in the nearby villages of  Slaŭharad  District and  Slaŭharad, the district center. On this day over one thousand years, the residents of the Prysožža, the areas of Mahilioŭ and  Homel Regions  along  the Sož  River, as well as the  adjacent  areas  of  Russia and Ukraine (Smalensk, Briansk and Čarnihaŭ Regions) have been coming to the sacred "Blue Spring" to get some water from the baptismal font of their ancestors.

People, who come to take part in the festivities, join  the  Cross Procession, the prayer, the ceremony of consecration of spring water, and bathing in it. The priests baptize young children and adults. The celebration finishes with visiting and worshiping the consecrated ancient boulders resting on the natural glade near the spring. The spring itself is a natural object of special interest. Its  water’s  temperature is constant - +8ºC (46.4°F): it does not freeze in the winter and does not get warm in the summer.

Pilgrimage to the "Blue Spring" and the feast on August 14 are popular cultural events, which attract not only local community, who consider this tradition to be their intangible cultural value and pass it on from generation to generation, but also people from other regions of the country.