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Armenians begin Christmas celebrations in Bethlehem

January 18, 2017 By administrator

The Orthodox Armenian patriarch of Jerusalem, Nourhan Manougian, arrived Wednesday at Manager Square in Bethlehem, marking the start of Armenian Christmas and the Feast of the Epiphany, WAFA reports.

Manougian’s procession started from the Armenian Patriarchate, located within the Monastery of St. James in the Old City of Jerusalem, and made its way to Manger Square via Jaffa Gate. It stopped at Mar Elias Monastery on the way to Bethlehem where he was greeted by the mayors of Beit Jala and Beit Sahour before proceeding to Bethlehem via a metal gate in the wall that separates Bethlehem from Jerusalem.

Israel opens the gate for the Christmas processions to allow them quick access to Bethlehem, surrounded by a wall and Israeli settlements.

After reaching Bethlehem, Manougian was greeted by Bethlehem Governor Jebrin al-Bakri, Bethlehem Mayor Vera Baboun.

The Patriarch was also greeted upon his arrival by the Armenian community notables before making a solemn entry into the Basilica of the Nativity and St. Catherine’s Church.

President Mahmoud Abbas has already arrived in Bethlehem and is anticipated to attend the midnight mass.

Orthodox Armenian Christians in Palestine celebrate Christmas nearly two weeks after the majority of the Greek Orthodox Church and other Eastern Orthodox denominations, who marked the feast on January 7, and more than three weeks after Roman Catholic Christians, who celebrated it on December 25.

The differences in dates of Christmas feast are due to the use of different calendars. Roman Catholic Christians and other western denominations mark the feast using the Gregorian calendar, Orthodox Christians and most Armenian denominations celebrate the feast using the Julian calendar, while the Armenian Patriarchate of Jerusalem marks Christmas and Epiphany together on January 19.

Filed Under: Articles Tagged With: Armenian, Bethlehem, christmas

Bethlehem Mahmoud Abbas to the Armenians: “You are the salt of the earth”

January 20, 2016 By administrator

arton121174-480x321Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, who attended Monday the Armenian Christmas celebrations in the Church of the Nativity in Betlhéhem, conveyed his best wishes “to our brothers in Palestine Armenians in Armenia and around the world.”

He also said at the reception: “We Palestinians have been through similar experiences with the Armenians; we were repressed, terrorized and banished. As the Armenian people emigrated from their country to ours and other places, we live the same struggle; we emigrated in 1948 in Syria and refugees migrate to the sea, in exile and in places known only to God.

We share many similarities, and here we are truly a nation. We worship the same God and the same homeland from which we take great care. We are all on the same level, we and you and everyone. Therefore, when some people say it is imperative to get rid of Christians and especially Armenians, we tell them to eat their heart, because Armenians still remain in Jerusalem, Ramallah and Bethlehem. Christians will always be the salt of the earth and will remain on their land and in their country. Whoever wants to leave they should do so in his place. “He stressed.

Abbas also said he had sent an official invitation to President Sargsyan to visit Palestine.

Wednesday, January 20, 2016,
Jean Eckian © armenews.com

 

Filed Under: Articles Tagged With: Armenian, Bethlehem

Bethlehem: Armenian Christmas in the Holy Land ‘you cannot imagine

December 2, 2015 By administrator

Photos by Shant Nalbandian

Photos by Shant Nalbandian

By Maayan Jaffe
JNS.org

Scouts with their colorful uniforms gather. More than 20 Armenian bishops and priests stand in Manger Square in Bethlehem to greet the Armenian Patriarch, His Beatitude Archbishop Nourhan Manougian. With the sounds of trumpets, bagpipes, and music, the voices of young choir singers and shouts of joy, the Armenian Christmas ceremony commences.

It’s 10 a.m. and the procession begins. By 10:30, Israeli police on horseback meet the group. By 2 p.m., the Patriarch will enter the Church of the Nativity and the first of three masses will begin in the Grotto of the Nativity, the place where Jesus was born.

“You cannot imagine,” says Father Avedis Ipradjian during an interview with JNS.org in the Armenian Quarter of Jerusalem. He describes hundreds of worshippers pouring into Bethlehem from Jaffa, Haifa, Ramle, and Jerusalem. They are greeted by Bethlehem Mayor Vera Baboun, Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas, and several other important Christian, Muslim, and governmental dignitaries.

Special permits are required to allow for the mass pilgrimage of Israeli Armenian Christians to Bethlehem. Every year, families receive a sheet of paper to affix to their cars and they go unhindered. Today, members of the PA greet the procession. Before 1995, top Israeli officials took part in the ceremony.

“With all of the children there is such joy. The Armenian scouts play beautiful Christmas music,” says Ipradjian.

The ceremony takes more than 24 hours, only ending after a 7 a.m. final mass. Throughout the evening, unique Armenian Christmas hymns are sung and a special liturgy is followed from holy books used only on Christmas. The Patriarch blesses attendees and they eat and drink together between services.

“There are hundreds of people, but they will all be fed,” Ipradjian notes. “We don’t go to sleep. It is 29 to 30 hours of no sleep.”

It is a regal Christmas party and a meaningful mass, as one would expect of a classy religious celebration in the Holy Land. But there is something very different.

“We do it all alone,” says Ipradjian.

 

The Armenian Christmas in the Holy Land is not on Dec. 25, as one would expect. It is celebrated at a time different from Christmas celebrations all over the Western world. Armenian Christmas takes place in Israel from Jan. 18-19.

In the U.S., people are familiar with Christmas occurring from Dec. 24-25. That is the date of Christmas according to the Gregorian calendar, which was first instituted in 1582 by Pope Gregory XIII. Today, the Gregorian calendar is the internationally accepted civil calendar and is also known as the Western calendar or the Christian calendar.

There is another calendar that some Christians still adhere to and that is the old calendar, which is the Julian calendar. Many Orthodox Christians annually celebrate Christmas Day from Jan. 6-7, which marks Jesus’s birth according to the Julian calendar.  In Israel, Greek Orthodox Christians celebrate Christmas from Jan. 6-7 and the epiphany (commemorating the manifestation of Christ to the gentiles in the persons of the Magi) on Jan. 19.

Dr. Sergio La Porta, Haig and Isabel Berberian Professor of Armenian Studies at California State University, Fresno, explains that the Julian calendar is 13 days off from the Gregorian. The Jan. 7 date on the Gregorian calendar corresponds with Dec. 25 on the Julian calendar, while Jan. 19 corresponds to Jan. 6 on the Julian calendar. Those such as the Greek Orthodox who observe Christmas on Jan. 7 are actually observing a Dec. 25 birth of Jesus. The Armenian Christians are celebrating a Jan. 6 birth of Jesus.

The Armenians in Israel celebrate the birth and the epiphany within the same two-day period, from the afternoon of Jan. 18 until midnight on Jan. 19.

“It is pretty amazing,” says La Porta. “I don’t think I have ever seen anything like it—anyone celebrate it like this—anywhere in the world.” La Porta lived in Israel and worked at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem during the early 2000s.

In Israel, the Armenians are under the jurisdiction of the Armenian Patriarchate of Jerusalem. According to Ipradjian, there are around 8,000 Armenian Christians living in Israel. Around 4,000 of these individuals have roots in Israel from as early as the 4th or 5th century. The other 4,000 arrived in the last century, escaping the Armenian genocide in Turkey between 1915 and 1917 or coming as part of an intermarried family with the mass immigration of Jews to Israel from the former Soviet Union between 1992 and 1995, continuing until 2006.

In Jerusalem, amid the many significant churches—such as the Holy Sepulchre and St. Mary’s at the foot of the Mount of Olives—there are two large Armenian churches, with smaller ones mostly in northern Israel. The Cathedral of St. James in Jerusalem is one of the most ornately decorated places of worship in Israel, according to La Porta. It is nestled within a walled compound in the ancient Armenian Quarter, which sits just inside the Jaffa Gate. The Cathedral of St. James is dedicated to two martyred saints of that name—St. James the Great (son of Zebedee), one of the first apostles to follow Jesus, and St. James the Lesser (the brother of Jesus), who became the first bishop of Jerusalem.

“The Armenian tradition believes that within St. James are buried the head of St. James the Great and the body of St James the Less,” La Porta says.

The Church of the Holy Archangels is another important Armenian Church in Jerusalem. It is built on a less grandiose scale than St. James and serves as a parish church. But according to La Porta, during recent excavations and restorations, workers came across inscriptions that are believed to date back as far as the 13th century.

On Christmas, all the Armenians come—members of all churches attend the ceremony in Bethlehem, and after the completion of the morning mass return home to complete festivities locally. At St. James, participants dine on pilaf and fish, celebrating by the light of hanging oil lamps.

“You cannot imagine,” Ipradjian says once again. “This is Christmas. It is everything that for Christians it should be.”

 

Filed Under: News Tagged With: Armenian, Bethlehem, christmas

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