“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness, that to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness”

Tuesday, July 4, is the 241st anniversary of the adoption of the American Declaration of Independence by the Continental Congress. The Declaration was written primarily by Thomas Jefferson as a member of a committee that included John Adams and Benjamin Franklin. The Declaration is considered to be one of the most important documents ever written that continues to influence the thoughts of humankind. Jefferson described the Declaration of Independence as “an appeal to the tribunal of the world.” The principles embodied in the declaration have resounded throughout the world. Reformers, wherever they may be or whatever their cause, have reminded the public that “all men are created equal.” Wherever people have fought against undemocratic regimes, they have argued, using Jefferson’s words, that governments derive “their just powers from the consent of the governed.”

Read the full text of the Declaration here.

PONTIFICAL PRAYERS AND BLESSINGS OFFERED

Archbishop Oshagan Choloyan presides over the special Pontifical Prayers offered at St. Illuminator Cathedral on the occasion of the 22nd anniversary of the pontificate of His Holiness Catholicos Aram I. The Prelate is with Rev. Fr. Mesrob Lakissian, Pastor, and altar servers Dn. Krikor Essaian, Dn. Shant Kazanjian, and Setrak Balmanoukian.

Last Sunday parishes of the Eastern Prelacy offered Pontifical Prayers and Blessings on the occasion of the 22nd anniversary of the election and consecration of His Holiness Aram I, Catholicos of the Holy See of Cilicia.  His Holiness was consecrated Catholicos of Cilicia on July 1, 1995. During the past twenty-two years under his leadership a new page in the history of the ancient Holy See of Cilicia has been filled with many accomplishments that include new initiatives for educational religious and cultural program, strengthening the Armenian identity in the Diaspora, promoting and supporting ecumenism and interfaith relations, supporting the Armenian Cause, and launching and completing many new construction projects to facilitate the work of the Catholicosate.

18th ANNIVERSARY OF PASSING OF KAREKIN I

His Holiness Karekin I during the Feast of Holy Etchmiadzin

We note with sadness that today, June 29, is the 18th anniversary of the passing of His Holiness Catholicos Karekin I, the 131st occupant of the throne of St. Gregory the Illuminator. His Holiness died on June 29, 1999, in Etchmiadzin. His Holiness was Prelate of the Eastern Prelacy from 1974 to 1977; Catholicos of Cilicia from 1977 to 1995; and Catholicos of All Armenians from 1995 to 1999. Armenians throughout the world mourned the loss of a charismatic leader who was also a friend. Tributes and condolences from all over the world and from all walks of life flowed into Etchmiadzin. Today’s issue of Aztag Daily (published in Lebanon) includes articles of remembrance. To read the articles (in Armenian) click here.

The 50th anniversary of the ordination of His Eminence Archbishop Oshagan will take place on Sunday, October 29, under the auspices and presence of His Holiness Aram I, Catholicos of the Holy See of the Great House of Cilicia.

The celebratory day will begin with a special Divine Liturgy at St. Illuminator Cathedral, 221 East 27th Street, New York City, beginning at 10 am. A reception and dinner will follow at The New York Palace, 455 Madison Avenue, New York City.

Yesterday evening the first joint meeting of the Steering and Banquet Committees took place at the Prelacy offices, under the chairmanship of His Grace Bishop Anoushavan Tanielian, Vicar General,
 to plan a worthy and proper celebration of the fifty years of distinguished service rendered by His Eminence to the Armenian Church and Nation. During the coming weeks we will share the exciting details. For now, please reserve the new date: Sunday, October 29.

Archbishop Oshagan will attend this weekend’s Eastern United States Homenetmen Navasartian Games being hosted by the Providence, Rhode Island chapter from July 1 to 4. His Eminence will offer opening prayers at the games and the banquet that will take place on July 3. This 27th annual event is expected to feature the participation of more than 450 athletes.

Bible readings for Sunday, July 2, Fourth Sunday after Pentecost are: Isaiah 1:21-31; Romans 7:25-8:11; Matthew 12:38-45.


Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!

So then, with my mind I am a slave to the law of God, but with my flesh I am a slave to the law of sin. There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and of death. For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do: by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and to deal with sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, so that the just requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit. For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit. To set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace. For this reason the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God; it does not submit to God’s law—indeed it cannot, and those who are in the flesh cannot please God.  

But you are not in the flesh; you are in the Spirit, since the Spirit of God dwells in you. Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him. But if Christ is in you, though the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness. If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will give life to your mortal bodies also through his Spirit that dwells in you. (Romans 7:25-8:11)

There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.
Then some of the scribes and Pharisees said to him, “Teacher, we wish to see a sign from you.” But he answered them, “An evil and adulterous generation asks for a sign, but no sign will be given to it except the sign of the prophet Jonah. For just as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the sea monster, so for three days and three nights the Son of Man in the heart of the earth. The people of Ninevah will rise up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it, because they repented the proclamation of Jonah, and see, something greater than Jonah is here! The queen of the South will rise up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it, because she came from the ends of the earth to listen to the wisdom of Solomon, and see, something greater than Solomon is here!
 

“When the unclean spirit has gone out of a person, it wanders through waterless regions looking for a resting place, but it finds it empty, swept, and put in order. Then it goes and brings along seven other spirits more evil than itself, and they enter and live there; and the last state of that person is worse than the first. So will it be also with this evil generation. (Matthew 12:38-45)

After years of evangelizing, St. Gregory sought solitude and an ascetic life. He retired to a cave at Mount Sepouh where he died in solitude. Shepherds found his body and without realizing his identity they buried him under a pile of stones. Later a hermit, known as Garnik of Pasen, who was a disciple of Gregory, saw a vision and went to Mount Sepouh and found the burial site. He took the saint’s remains to the village of Tordan for burial where King Trdat was buried.

Relics from the right hand of St. Gregory, encased in a golden arm, are at the Holy Mother See of Etchmiadzin and the Holy See of Cilicia. Continuing long established traditions, the Catholicoi mix the new Muron (holy oil) with the old Muron with the golden arm of St. Gregory.

This Tuesday (July 4) the Armenian Church commemorates Daniel the Prophet and his companions. Daniel and his youthful companions Shadrach (Setrak), Meshack (Misak), and Abednego (Apetnakov), found favor with the Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar after their captivity. When the king gave orders for a large statue of himself to be worshipped like a god, Daniel and the three youths refused. Shadrack, Meshack, and Abednego were put into a large furnace. The flames shot out of the furnace and attacked those standing nearby, but the three boys walked in the flames without harm. Seeing this, the king ordered their release from the furnace, and he became a convert. (See the Book of Daniel, chapters 1 to 3 for the full account)

St. Gregory of Datev Summer Institute at St. Mary of Providence Center, Elverson, Pennsylvania, begins this Sunday, July 2, under the sponsorship of the Prelacy’s Armenian Religious Education Council (AREC). This summer program, now entering its 32nd year, offers a unique weeklong Christian educational program for teens. The daily schedule reflects the Institute’s three main objectives: education, worship, and fellowship. 

ARCHPRIEST FR. MOUSHEGH DER KALOUSTIAN

CELEBRATES 85TH BIRTHDAY

Archpriest Fr. Moushegh Der Kaloustian with Rev. Fr. Mesrob Lakissian, Yn. Ojeen Lakissian, and Yn. Vartouhi Der Kaloustian.

Last week, Rev. Fr. Mesrob Lakissian, Pastor of St. Illuminator’s Cathedral, accompanied by his family visited Archpriest Fr. Moushegh Der Kaloustian, to congratulate him on his 85th birthday. Der Moushegh has served the Armenian Church for more than 60 years. He was ordained on November 11, 1956 and has served the Prelacy as pastor at St. Hagop Church in Racine, Wisconsin, Holy Trinity Church in Worcester, Massachusetts, and at St. Illuminator’s Cathedral where he served for thirty consecutive years until his retirement. Der Mesrob conveyed birthday good wishes on behalf of the Prelacy and thanked Der Moushegh and Yeretzgin for their many years of dedicated service to the Armenian Church and community.

Father Ghugas Injijian, geographer and philologist, was a member of the Mekhitarist Congregation of Venice and a prolific author of many valuable works in the first quarter of the nineteenth century.

He was born in Constantinople in 1758. His mother was the sister of another famous Mekhitarist monk, historian Mikayel Chamchian (1738-1823). His father sent him to study in the monastery of San Lazzaro, the headquarters of the congregation. He embraced ecclesiastic life in 1774. After a four-year sojourn in Constantinople (1786-1790), he returned to Venice, where he started publishing his works.

His first publications were in verse: Brief Survey of Ancient and New Geography (1791), also translated into Italian, and partially into French; Byzantine Summerplace (1794), partly translated into Italian and French, which depicted the geography and geology of the Bosporus and Dardanelles Straits. After the publication of Azdarar (1794-1796) in India, Injijian became the publisher of the second Armenian periodical in history, called Darekrutiun (“Annals,” 1799-1802), which was continued by Yeghanag Piuzantian (“Byzantine Times,” 1803-1820). Both were yearbooks, written in Modern Armenian, which contained information about world political affairs, religious, academic, and scientific issues, as well as weather information and predictions.

In 1805 Injijian moved back to Constantinople and continued his activities. In 1806 he contributed a volume on Asia to the Geography of the Four Parts of the World, produced by his teacher Stepanos Agontz, the Abbot of the Venice branch of the congregation.

With the support of the Duzians, a wealthy family of amiras, in 1812 Injijian launched the Arsharouni Society with the goal of promoting books published in Modern Armenian. The Duzians fell in disgrace with the sultan in 1819, and Injijian, fearing for his life, escaped to Odessa, where he remained for a year. The Arsharouni Society was dissolved by the Turkish government, and Yeghanag Piuzantian, which the society sponsored, ceased publication.

After the danger had passed, Injijian returned to Constantinople in 1820, and two years later he published one of his most important works in Venice, Topography of Ancient Armenia, where he presented the historical and geographical picture of Greater Armenia on the basis of a wealth of data gathered from Greek, Roman, and Syriac sources. His work included the description of the geography of the fifteen provinces and hundreds of districts, etymology of place names, ethnographic information, and topographic amendments. This would be followed by the posthumous, three-volume Geographical Archaeology of the Armenian Land (1835), which was the first voluminous work after Chamchian’s History of Armenia to talk about the geography, administrative division, laws, science, arts, ethnography and other issues related to ancient Armenia.

Still, Injijian would produce an eight-volume work called Narration of the Century (Դարապատում), where he offered an abridged history of all countries from 1750-1800, which was published from 1824-1827. The last two volumes were devoted to the history of the development of science and art, as well as the life and work of great thinkers, artists and clergymen.

In early 1828, the Catholic Armenians of Ankara were deported, and Injijian considered it dangerous to remain in Constantinople. He returned to Venice, where he was elected deputy abbot of the Congregation and remained in that position until his death on July 2, 1833.

As we said in our last column, the English language deals in an easy way with relatives by the use of “in-law.” This indicates that some of the kinship terms common to Indo-European languages were lost over time, as in other sister languages too.

The Armenian language has a collection of terms for each “in-law” on both sides of the aisle. We previously discussed the in-laws for the case of fathers and mothers. Now we will deal with brothers-in-law and sisters-in-law:

Groom

Brother-in-law (wife’s brother): աներձագ (anertzak)

Brother-in-law (sister’s husband): քեռայր (kerayr)

Sister-in-law (wife’s sister): քենի (keni)

Sister-in-law (brother’s wife): հարս (hars).

Bride

Brother-in-law (husband’s brother): տագր (dakur)

Brother-in-law (sister’s husband): քեռայր (kerayr)

Sister-in-law (husband’s sister): տալ (dal)

Sister-in-law (brother's wife): հարս (hars)

As you will notice, some of these terms are repeated: the sister’s husband (kerayr) and the brother’s wife (hars) are identified in the same way on both sides. The word kerayr is a compound word: քեռ (ker) derives from քոյր (kuyr “sister”) and այր (ayr) means “husband.” On the other hand, hars is the word for “bride,” which probably indicates that the term for “sister-in-law” was lost in the mist of time.

While other terms like keni, dakur, and dal are specific root words, it is not the same for the groom’s brother-in-law. The word anertzak is compound (aner + tzak): it means “father-in-law’s child.”
We can also throw a couple of more terms in the mix:

• a) Groom’s sister-in-law’s husband: քենեկալ (kenegal). Etymologically, it refers to the “sister-in-law’s holder” (keni + gal root of the verb galel “to hold”);
• b) Bride’s brother-in-law’s (husband’s brother) wife: ներ (ner).

In the other cases, when you refer to the husband of a sister-in-law, you can use kerayr, and if it is the wife of a brother-in-law, then hars.

Of course, it is not as easy as “brother-in-law” and “sister-in-law,” but at least, when you want to refer to one of your in-laws, if you use the proper term, nobody will get confused about who you are talking about…

The Eastern Prelacy of the Armenian Apostolic Church of America is seeking applicants for the position of Assistant Communications Director that will lead to the position of Communications Director.

The successful applicant will work with the Director of Communications and Publications to assist with all aspects of public relations and communications. Applicant must be able to manage multiple deadlines, be attentive to details, and respect and understand the religious culture and history of the Armenian people.

Duties include assisting the Director of Communications in, but not limited to, the following:

• Write and/or edit press releases.

• Write and/or edit articles for semi-annual magazine.

• Help produce text for weekly electronic newsletter.

• Work with Communications Officer on internet based programs, including web page and social media.

• Edit and prepare projects (books, booklets, brochures) for printing.

Qualifications:

• Bachelor’s Degree in Communications or related field or Liberal Arts.

• Minimum 3-5 years experience.

• Strong writing skills.

• Skill with social media channels and other communications mediums to showcase Prelacy projects and programs.

• Knowledge of Armenian language and Armenian Church is a plus.

Salary is commensurate with experience and qualifications.

Please send a cover letter and CV to:

    Dr. Vazken Ghougassian, Executive Director

    Vazken@armenianprelacy.org

ARMENIAN GOLD CROSSES

The bookstore recently obtained a limited number of beautifully crafted gold Armenian crosses.

14K gold Armenian cross (1”), $130.00, plus shipping and handling.

14K gold chain (16”), $115.00, plus shipping and handling.

For information or to order these or any other book or gift item, contact the Prelacy Bookstore by email at books@armenianprelacy.org or telephone, 212-689-7810.

October 2-6—Clergy Conference for Eastern, Western, and Canadian Prelacies will take place in Montreal, hosted by the Prelacy of Canada.

October 7—Sts. Vartanantz Church, Ridgefield, New Jersey presents “The Battle of the Bands.” Dance all night with two bands featuring Onnig Dinkjian and Kevork Artinian. Mezza and Dessert tables. For information and reservations contact: Bea Movsesian 201-445-6867; Lynn Mahlebjian 201-739-6217; Silva Kouyoumdjian 201-779-6744.

October 14—Armenian Friends of America, Inc., present “Hye Kef 5,” a five hour dance featuring Onnik Dinkjian with John Berberian (Oud); Mal Barsamian (Clarinet); Ara Dinkjian (keyboard); Ron Tutunjian (Dumbeg), at DoubleTree by Hilton, 123 Old River Road, Andover, Massachusetts. Tickets: $55 (before September 1); $65 (after September 1); $50 for students 21 and under. Continuous buffet 7:30 to 9:30 pm; coffee and dessert will follow. Advance tickets only. Proceeds will benefit five Armenian churches. For information: Sharke Der Apkarian 978-808-0598.

October 29—CHANGE OF DATE / SAVE THE DATE. Celebrating the 50th anniversary of the ordination of His Eminence Archbishop Oshagan Choloyan, under the auspices and presence of His Holiness Aram I, Catholicos of the Holy See of Cilicia. Divine Liturgy at St. Illuminator Cathedral, 221 East 27th Street, New York City, at 10 am. Followed by reception and dinner at The New York Palace, 455 Madison Avenue, New York City.

December 5-8—World General Assembly of the Great House of Cilicia, at the Catholicosate in Antelias, Lebanon.