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Holy Resurrection "Easter"

Easter is the greatest festival of the Christian year in the Orthodox Church, and the Easter services abound in joyful celebration. Through Christ's Resurrection, we mystically enter the "New Jerusalem" which shines eternally with the glorious Light of Christ and overcomes death and evil. The Orthodox Churches, including the Armenian Church, proclaim that "Christ has trampled down death by death." Through Christ's crucifixion and glorious Resurrection, we are all given new life. As He is Risen, so are we all.

The significance of Easter in Orthodox theology and spiritually is contained in the icon of the feast. It depicts the descent of Christ into hell after His crucifIxion. Triumphant and glorious, He holds in His hand the cross, the sign of victory , and stands on the broken gates of Hades. Beneath Christ's feet, the figure of death cowers defeated. The Risen Christ takes Adam and Eve by the hand and draws them out of their graves. Behind them David and Solomon, and other figures of the Old Testament, wait their turn to be raised to life. The icon is called simply "The Resurrection," a deliberately universal title, for it shows both the Resurrection of Jesus Christ and that resurrection of the humanity that He died to save.

The Orthodox tradition preserves the emphasis of the early Christian Paschal celebration. We celebrate the victory of Christ over sin and death on the Cross, as well as our participation in the salvation that His Resurrection has promised us.

Holy Ascension of the Lord

Forty days after Holy Easter our church celebrate the Holy Ascension of Christ. Ten days after Ascension comes the Feast of Pentecost: Descending of the Holy Spirit, which is next Sunday. Jesus did not live with his disciples after his resurrection as he had before his death. Filled with the glory of his divinity , he appeared at different times and places to his people, assuring them that it was him, truly alive in his risen and glorified body. To them he presented himself alive after his passion by many proofs, appearing to them during forty days, and speaking of the Kingdom ofGod (Acts 1 :3).

It should be noted that the time span of forty days is used many times in the Bible and signifies a temporal period of completeness and sufficiency (Gen 7:17; Ex 16:35,24:18; Judg 3:11; 1 Sam 17:16; 1 Kg 19:8; Jon 3:4; Mt 4:2). On the fortieth day after his passover, Jesus ascended into heaven to be glorified on the right hand of God {Acts 1 :9-11; Mk 16: 19; Lk 24:51 ). The ascension of Christ is his final physical departure from this world after the resurrection. It is the formal completion of his mission in this world as the Messianic Saviour. It is his glorious return to the Father who had sent him into the world to accomplish the work that he had given him to do (Jn 17:4-5).

Pentecost

Advent of the Holy Spirit. In the Old Testament Pentecost was the feast, which occurred fifty days after Passover. As the Passover feast celebrated the exodus of the Israelites from the slavery of Egypt, so Pentecost celebrated God's gift of the Ten Commandments to Moses on Mount Sinai;

In the new covenant of the Messiah, the Passover event takes on its new meaning as the celebration of Christ's death and resurrection, the "exodus" of men from this sinful world to the Kingdom of God. And in the New Testament as well, the Pentecostal feast is fulfilled and made new by the coming of the "new law ," the descent of the Holy Spirit upon the Disciples of Christ.

When the day of Pentecost had come they were all together in one place. And suddenly a sound came from heaven like the rush of a mighty wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. And there appeared to them tongues asofflfe, distributed as resting upon each one of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit ...(Acts 2: 1-4).

The Holy Spirit that Christ had promised to his disciples came on the day of Pentecost (Jn 14:26, 15:26; Lk 24:49; Acts 1:5). The apostles received "the power from on high," and they began to preach and bear witness to Jesus as the risen Christ, the King and the Lord. This moment has traditionally been called the birthday of the Church.

In the liturgical services of the feast of Pentecost. the coming of the Holy Spirit is celebrated together with the full revelation of the divine Trinity: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The fullness of tlle Godhead is manifested with the Spirit's coming to man, and the Church hymns celebrate t11is manifestation as the final act of God's self-disclosure and self-donation to the world of His creation. For this reason Pentecost Sunday is also called Trinity Day in the Orthodox tradition.

On Pentecost we have the final fulfillment of the mission of Jesus Christ and the first beginning of the messianic age of the Kingdom of God mystically present in this world in the Church of the Messiah. For this reason the fiftieth day stands as the beginning of the era which is beyond the limitations of this world. fifty being that number which stands for eternal and heavenly fulfillment in Jewish and Christian mystical piety: seven times seven, plus one.

Thus, Pentecost is called an apocalyptic day, which means the day of final revelation. It is also called an eschatological day, which means the day of the final and perfect end (in Greek eschaton means the end). For when the Messiah comes and the Lord's Day is at hand, the "last days" are inaugurated in which "God declares: ...I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh." This is the ancient prophecy to which the Apostle Peter refers in the first sermon of the Christian Church, which was preached on the first Sunday of Pentecost (Acts 2: 1 7; Joe1 2: 28-32).

Once again it must be noted that the feast of Pentecost is not simply the celebration of an event, which took place centuries ago. It is the celebration of what must happen and does happen to us in the Church today. We all have died and risen with the Messiah-King, and we all have received his Most Holy Spirit. We are the "temples of the Holy Spirit." God's Spirit dwells in us (Rom 8; 1 Cor 3, 12; 2 Cor 3; Gal 5; Eph 2-3). We, by our own membership in the Church, have received "the seal of the gift of the Holy Spirit" in the sacrament of chrismation. Pentecost has happened to us.

The Divine Liturgy of Pentecost recalls our baptism into Christ with the verse from Galatians again replacing the Thrice-Holy Hymn. Special verses from the psalms also replace the usual antiphonal psalms of the liturgy. The epistle and gospel readings tell of the Spirit's coming to men.

Armenian Martyrs Day

Each year on Apri124th we commemorate as a nation the first genocide of the 2Oth century, known as the Great Tragedy (Medz Yeghem), the martyrdom of 1.5 million Armenians. The Annenian Church was certainly not spared from all the destruction, suffering and massacre, which took place.

The following is an excerpt from Teotig's " Golgotha of the Turkish Armenian Clergy: II

We are well beyond those centUries when to be called a Christian was synonymous with the shedding of one's blood and when Christians viewed martyrdom with the joy of a champion receiving his trophy.

We are deeply saddened to see the Annenian Church become a widow.No more are all those (clergy) who imn1ersed so many children in the fonts of baptism and who blessed so many matrimonial crowns. No more are all those who kept the fire of the faith burning in the hearts of their parishioners. No more are all those who to the extent of their service in the temple of God likewise devoted themselves to serving in the temple of enlightenment, continually educating the new generation. No longer are heard the "alleluias" of all those who during the service of the Blessing of Fields (Antasdan) pronounced blessing by the sign of

the Cross, upon the nation's Catholicosate, the kingdom, the fruitfulness and the people.Nor did they, in an effort to spare their own lives, ever recognize the mosque in place of the church. Rather they were sacrificed together with their flock on the altar of their Nation's martyrdom, preserving intact the name of the Annenian Christian, We will never cease mourning their great loss, nor will we cease praising them, because by an honorable death they saw and felt the sweetness of their departing from earth to immortality .

We will also never cease marveling at their souls' courage, by which they despised that which is false, that which is unclean; and with bloody foreheads and beaten body parts, they walked to Golgotha.

 
St. Mary Armenian Church
200 West Mount Pleasant Avenue
Livingston, New Jersey 07039 		Phone: 973-533-9794
FAX: 973-992-0458
Email: info@myarmenianchurch.org