Transfiguration of the Lord

The feast of our Lord’s Transfiguration was celebrated in the East as early as the fourth or fifth century. Though the New Testament accounts of the Transfiguration (Matt. 17:1–9; Mark 9:2–10; Luke 9:28–36) do not mention the mountain where this singular event took place, nevertheless, tradition has taken it to be Mount Tabor, about six miles southeast of Nazareth. In the fourth or fifth century, a church had been erected on that mount, and because that church had been consecrated on August 6, that became the date for the feast’s celebration. The feast was then introduced in the West in the eighth century, but it remained for a long time only a local Roman celebration. Then, on August 6, 1456, news arrived in Rome that the Christian army at Belgrade (Yugoslavia), on the previous July 22, had been victorious over the Turks. In memory of this victory, and the fact that the news arrived in Rome on the feast of the Transfiguration, Pope Callistus III added (August 6, 1457) the feast to the universal Roman calendar so that it could be celebrated throughout the Christian world.