As he recovers in the hospital, Diocesan Primate Fr. Mesrop Parsamyan sends words of gratitude for the outpouring of prayerful affection and support he has received.
“My Dear Friends, I send you my blessings and good wishes for health and long life,” he writes. “Today, I write these words from my room in Albany Medical Center, where I am recovering following my auto accident.”
“During this past week, the messages of care and concern I have received have been very meaningful to me, and I am eternally grateful for your prayers and good wishes. With this note, I want to offer a few words of thanks in return…”
Read his entire message of thanks below.
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A Personal Message of Thanks from Fr. Mesrop Parsamyan
Primate of the Eastern Diocese of the Armenian Church of America
My Dear Friends,
I send you my blessings and good wishes for health and long life. Today, I write these words from my room in Albany Medical Center, where I am recovering following my auto accident.
During this past week, the messages of care and concern I have received have been very meaningful to me, and I am eternally grateful for your prayers and good wishes. With this note, I want to offer a few words of thanks in return.
Rest assured that I am in the hands of excellent, caring physicians and nurses, in a top-flight hospital setting. In addition to the staff, numerous Armenian doctors and nurses from the region have looked in on me, and many others from around the country have contacted the Diocese offering their counsel whenever it is needed. I am thankful for them all, and for the attention of members of the Armenian American Health Professionals Organization.
Needless to say, this experience has left a profound impression on me. I have tangibly felt the Lord’s hand upon me at other moments of my life; but never more firmly, more powerfully, than in this past week. As a younger man, I answered the Lord’s call, and gave Him my life. But now more than ever, I feel blessed to serve His purpose, and live in His mercy.
Likewise, I have been blessed throughout my life by the love of many people: parents, family, friends, and faithful churchgoers among them. But the outpouring of affection I have felt this week has been truly overwhelming. Your kind hearts, your words of encouragement and hope, the stories you’ve shared of your personal trials, your generous offers of counsel and medical expertise—all of these beautiful expressions of love have touched me in the deepest way.
During the past days, His Holiness Karekin II has graced me with a personal visit; my brother clergy have been by my side and ready to carry any burden to help; and I have received the compassion of friends and strangers alike. To merely say “thank you” in return feels terribly inadequate. But believe me when I say my gratitude to you comes from “the very depths of my heart”—to use the intense phrase favored by our precious St. Gregory of Narek.
The physical road ahead for me will be arduous, I fully understand. The doctors assure me there will be many weeks of rehab ahead, some of it painful. But they have every confidence of a complete recovery. And as for me, my assurance lies with faith in the Lord, who has “overcome the world” (Jn 16:33), and through whom “all things are possible” (Mt 19:26). And I feel especially blessed to share this journey with so many wonderful, supportive, faithful people.
Thank you again. May our Lord Jesus Christ lead us forward, to grow in faith together, and to reach the brighter days that lie ahead.
Prayerfully,
Fr. Mesrop Parsamyan
Primate
July 22, 2022