A longstanding project of the Holy Trinity Church (Cheltenham, PA) came to fruition last week, when a blessing ceremony took place at the Church of the Annunciation in Nazareth.
It was there, on February 15, that His Beatitude Archbishop Nourhan Manougian, the Armenian Patriarch of Jerusalem, blessed a new Armenian icon installed on the wall of the shrine, which marks the place where St. Mary received the angelic announcement that she had been chosen to give birth to the world’s savior. The ceramic icon was the creation of artist Viken Lepejian, who accompanied Patriarch Nourhan for the ceremony, as did Patriarchate Chancellor Fr. Koryoun Baghdasaryan.
But the icon originated in the minds and hearts of parishioners of the Cheltenham parish, who in April of 2018 had travelled to the Holy Land on a pilgrimage led by their pastor, Fr. Hakob Gevorgyan. While visiting Nazareth’s Church of the Annunciation, and admiring the beautiful mosaics adorning its walls—each of which represents a gift from a different country—the pilgrims were dismayed by the absence of a mosaic representing Armenia.
They vowed to rectify the situation. Led by a committee comprised of Fr. Gevorgyan, Dr. Garo Garibian, Tanya Paretchan, and Gena DerHagopian Willard, and with the consultation of Fr. Norayr Kazazian (who served as liaison with the artist in Jerusalem), the generous Cheltenham pilgrims realized their ambition. Some three years after its conception, a ceramic icon of St. Mary and Jesus now hangs in the historic Church of the Annunciation, as a gift of the Armenian faithful.
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