The New Year (Gaghant, Amanor or Navasart) has generally been a feast of joy and happiness for the Armenian people. It is customary to exchange gifts with family members and close friends and to bring delight to children with gifts. It is also customary to set the family table to the extent of... Read More »

  Eve of Feast of the Holy Nativity and Theophany of Our Lord Jesus Christ, Candlelight (Lucernarium) Divine Liturgy According to the Armenian Church, the day changes at 5:00 pm and thus the Feast of the Holy Nativity and Theophany of Our Lord Jesus Christ starts on the eve, on the evening of January 5... Read More »

  Each year, on January 13, the Armenian Apostolic Church celebrates the Feast of Naming of Our Lord Jesus Christ. As Evangelist St. Luke writes in his Gospel, according to the  Jewish tradition “On the eighth day, when it was time to circumcise him, he was named Jesus, the name the angel had given him... Read More »

  ST SARKIS THE WARRIOR AND HIS SON ST MARDIROS (MARTYROS) The feast day honoring St. Sarkis is movable.  It occurs between January 11th and February 15th.  Each year it follows the five day Fast of Catechumens. Sarkis was a Greek from the area of Cappadocia on the Anatolian plain.  He was a proud, brave... Read More »

  The Armenian Apostolic Church, observes the Feast of the Birth of St John the Baptist, the Forerunner, in January. The birth of St John is described in detail in the Gospel according to St Luke (1:5-25). He is known as the ‘forerunner’ because it was he who would herald the news of the Saviour... Read More »

    Some time after the spread of Christianity, the ascetic movement began. Hermits were people who devoted themselves entirely to God, withdrew to uninhabited places and through prayer and fasting, by the grace of God, overcame human weaknesses, achieving spiritual perfection. Years later, hermits also received the gift of healing through miracles and prayers.... Read More »

  The Armenian Church commemorates Theodosius I, the Roman Emperor (379 to 395) who put an end to the last of paganism and the Arian heresy in the empire (The doctrine denying the true divinity of Christ, named after the Alexandrian priest Arius c. 250–c. 336). He was recognised as a “just and mighty Christian... Read More »

  During different periods of history, the Ecumenical Church has faced various problems of doctrinal, administrative and organisational natures, solutions to which have been provided during the Ecumenical Councils. One of such councils was the Second Ecumenical Council, convened upon the order of the King Theodosios in Constantinople, in 381. As the result of Arian... Read More »

The Fast of Catechumens (or Arachavorats Bahk) is peculiar only to the Armenian Church. It begins three weeks before Great Lent. In ancient times people could eat only bread and salt during the Fast of Catechumens. On those days it was not allowed to celebrate the Divine Liturgy either. The meaning of the Fast of... Read More »

  On the fifth day (Friday) of the Fasting of Catechumens, the Armenian Church commemorates the remembrance day of the Prophet Jonah. However it is celebrated not as the feast of the Prophet Jonah, but as the memory of an example of great repentance and abstinence, which Jonah urged. The Fast of the Catechumens is... Read More »