On the weekend of June 4-5, 2021, the Armenian Church of the Holy Resurrection in New Britain, CT, and the entire Eastern Diocese of the Armenian Church of America, witnessed the holy sacrament of ordination, culminating in the consecration of a new priest to lead the faithful.
The ordination of a new priest of the Armenian Church was a memorable “first” for the Diocesan parish in Springfield, MA.
In the Armenian Church, memorial days of one kind or another are quite common: we observe merelots after the major feast days; we remember our departed loved ones on the karasoonk of their passing, and thereafter through annual hokehankisd services.
Each year on May 28, Armenians around the world honor the anniversary of the Battle of Sardarabad and the establishment of the First Armenian Republic (1918-1920). This week marks 103 years since those fateful events.
He was a man of holiness and generosity; but also a man who could countenance the cruelest violence. His very name confessed his loyalty to God—but also prefigured the loneliness that can follow any man with such loyalties. He was Elijah the Tishbite, Elijah “the Stranger”:
