This year, the moveable feast of Mid-Pentecost fell on the remembrance day of Saint Nicholas the Wonderworker.

The Midfeast is the exact midpoint of the sacred period of 50 days between Pascha and Trinity called Pentecostarion.

The name of the feast, or Midfeast, was borrowed from the Gospel story about Jesus Christ who, on the third year of his teaching and in the middle of the Feast of Tabernacles, went to the Temple and taught. The Jews marveled at His words saying, ‘how knoweth this man letters, having never learned?’ Transformed by the Divine teaching of our Lord, the mid-feast turned into a feast of the Church of Christ.

During this week, the Church remembers the paralytic, the blessing of the water by the Angel at the Sheep’s Pool and the call of the Lord on the Feast of Tabernacles: “If any man thirst, let him come unto me, and drink.” After Liturgy on the Mid-Feast, the churches perform the service of Lesser Blessing of the water seeking the Lord to “fill the souls of those who thirst with waters of righteousness.”

Following the monastery tradition, the water blessing service on this feast is served at the Iveron Icon Spring. Following it, the procession with the cross walks along the boundaries of the monastery’s originally designated territory. “It is not truly a monastery per se but a monastery district that spread over three versts (approximately 5.6 miles), Bishop Joannicius from Nizhny Novgorod used to say at the beginning of the 20^th century. Once a year, the procession with the cross traverses the so-called “district” and it takes about an hour. Along the way, holy water is sprinkled over the buildings, lands and people.