The blessing of grapes on the Feast of Transfiguration can be understood in the light of the theological, anthropological and cosmological dimensions of this feast.
The Savior Christ, wanting to give his disciples a taste of eternal life a few days before the passion, received three of his disciples, Peter, James and John, and ascended them to Mount Tabor. There He transformed and His face shone, and He appeared as light.
He is the Creator of the world, and the ruler of the end. He is the true vine and “you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing. If you do not remain in me, you are like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned. If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. This is to my Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples.”
It is natural that the Transfiguration of Jesus enlightens and glorifies the whole world.
The Transfiguration of Jesus
Creation becomes cheerful and garners the splendor at the time of creation. For this very reason, responding gloriously to this gift and hope, the creation refers to its Creator and thanks Him, and in the most appropriate feast, that of Creation and Renewal and Hope, the Church blesses the world and its beginnings, thus confirming that renewal begins with God, passes through nature and ends in the salvation of humankind.
The blessing of the grapes, these representative beginnings of the world, is a liturgical act that emphasizes especially the doxological and eucharistical offering of the matter and fruits of the earth to the Creator God Who created everything.
Even more so, when this fruit of the vine gives us the wine, which Christ blessed in Cana, to demonstrate the transformation of the world, and handed it to us at the Last Supper, as that element, which together with the bread, at the time of the Divine Liturgy become charismatically incorrupted, transformed into “body and blood,” that is, Divine Eucharist.
In addition, the blessing of the grapes emphasizes the need for continuous spiritual fruitfulness and transformational course of man, as “those who excel in virtue and are deemed worthy to receive divine glory.”
Source: Metropolis of Zambia