Meaning of the Reading & Application for Today Every holiday in the Armenian Church calendar has a period of fasting and preparation before it. The two greatest holidays of the Armenian Church, Easter and Christmas, likewise have the two longest periods of fasting and preparation.This Sunday we begin the fifty-day preparation (Heesnag) before the great church holiday of Christmas. These days, the…

Meaning of the Feast & Application for Today The Cross is not just a symbolic ornament to wear as a good luck charm or outward sign of our faith, rather it is a way of participating in the love of God that is stronger than any evil, even death. Armenians take this power very seriously, as evidenced by a favorite saying Sourp…

Meaning of the Feast & Application for Today Today we celebrate the Feast of the Holy Cross of Varak. Unique to the Armenian Church, this feast celebrates the burial, in the 3rd century, of an authentic relic of the cross by the founding saint of the Armenian Church, Hripsime. She buried the relic to protect it from the heathen soldiers pursuing her.…

Meaning of the Reading & Application for Today What is God’s intention for our state in life, whether married or single?Jesus deals with the issue of divorce by taking his hearers back to thebeginning of creation and to God’s plan for the human race. In Genesis 2:23-24 we see God’s intention and ideal that two people who marry shouldbecome so indissolubly one…

Meaning of the Feast & Application for Today Today on the exaltation of the Cross-through mid November-we remember the cross of Christ. Human beings are forgetful creatures. If we don’t regularly remind ourselves of what we have been through, who we have known and what we have become, we are bound to forget. One of the oldest and best ways of remembering…