Feast of the Transfiguration of the Lord

On 6 August, Eastern traditions of Christianity as well as the Roman rite celebrate the feast of the ‘Transfiguration of the Lord’. They recall the story from the Gospel of St Matthew that Jesus changed his appearance on a high mountain before the eyes of Peter, James, and John and shone from within. Moses and Elijah appeared with him and - as at Jesus' baptism in the Jordan - a voice from heaven proclaimed that Jesus was the Son of God.

In terms of religious history, the tradition is a theophany, an appearance of the divinity. Matthew's text is reminiscent of depictions of the covenant of biblical Israel, in which, for example, Moses - according to the account in the Book of Exodus - takes seventy of the elders of Israel to the Lord, who are allowed to see the God of Israel. The liturgy of the churches recognises the light of Mount Tabor, on which it locates the Transfiguration of the Lord, a glimpse of the end-time glory in which the three apostles are already allowed to participate at this point. In the Orthodox churches of the Byzantine tradition in particular, as in the Armenian Church, the feast is therefore one of the most important days of the church year.