Published since 07.2002
Published on May 09, 2008
COMMERCE AND CONVICTION: ARMENIAN PILGRIMAGES BRING JOY, BELIEF, BUSINESS
- Each year an Armenian village in Kotayk province turns into a mix of belief, joy and fair. People stand in line to go down into the small room dug in the ground where there is a sanctuary with an image of Surb Hovhannes (Saint John) holding a lamb, surrounded with images of other saints. The area is full of various voices – with the dreadful song of a faithful woman singing on her knees in front of the altar, which, however, is muffled by candle sellers’ “Buy cheap candles, may your dreams come true”, alms beggars’ “Give me some help, may your dreams come true”, traders’ “Cure my legs” children’s “Mom, would you buy me some sweets?” repeating every ten seconds. Welcome to Surb Hovhannes pilgrimage in Mayakovsky (former Shahab) village where Armenians come to light candles, pray, sing. Or to make business. (This year the pilgrimage was organized on April 27) Haykush Gevorgyan is one of them. She is from the Avan district of Yerevan and she learns about pilgrimages in advance, buys candles at the wholesale section of the Petak fair in Yerevan and sells it at the pilgrimages. “I sell candidates at pilgrimages taking place near Avan, at pilgrimages near Abovyan, only four or five times a year. I make less than five drams (two cents) from each candle I sell, I hardly sell 200,” 46 year old Gevorgyan says. A skinny woman with a heavily wrinkled face and a stooped back does not let people who buy candles from Gevorgyan or other candle sellers come inside. “Go and light it outside,” she says. “You see in what situation we are, complains 73-year-old Tamar Petrosyan, who inherited the honor and duty of keeping the chapel from her parents. “We have sold few candles, all come with candles bought outside, light them there, and I am supposed to clean it after them. You can’t imagine in what condition it is left. We clean it up, take care of it, but we have no gain, since last evening I have earned only 2,000 drams.” The village can be easily reached on minibus N44 from the town of Abovyan. Candle sellers offering 10 candles for 100 drams (about 35 cents) surround everyone who gets out of the minibus upon arrival. People come in groups, with their families, friends, also young couples The pilgrimage is a particular fun for the village’s kids – new toys would be bought for them. The Armenian Apostolic Church does not object to such pilgrimages, even though the pilgrimages are not officially marked by the Church. Besides the Surb Hovhannes pilgrimage (which is marked in different days of the year) there are also pilgrimages devoted to other saints, which are celebrated in different villages. Usually people call the pilgrimage by the name of the village – such as “Shahab pilgrimage”. Chief of staff of the Ararat Patriarchal Diocese of the Armenian Apostolic Church Hayk Tadevosyan says he himself has been trying to find statistics about pilgrimage places without spiritual leaders but to no avail. “We only have the list of registered churches, monasteries and chapels, but I cannot find anywhere [statistics for] such pilgrimage places,” says Tadevosyan. Spiritual pastor at the Holy Trinity church in Yerevan’s Malatia-Sebastia district Priest Ter Yesayi (Isaiah) Artenyan says that the presence of such pilgrimage places in itself is a positive sign. However, he says, it is bad that they have no spiritual pastors. “We cannot measure the extent of people’s faith. If they visit a pilgrimage place, it means they believe. The problem is that these people need knowledge in spiritual terms in order, for example, not to put all sorts of holy images in pilgrimage places, which sometimes are not even holy images, not to stain the surroundings with the blood of offered animals, not to beg alms or engage in trade,” Ter Yesayi says. Mher, 45, who has been engage in trade for ten years now, visits a dozen such pilgrimage places during the year in order to sell his goods – sunglasses, toys, beads, with the most expensive item being 1,500 drams ($5) “The profit here is great, true we sell it more cheaply, but in larger quantities,” he says. He says it is mostly pilgrimage sites in the provinces of Armavir and Kotayk that enjoy such popularity. There are people whose faith has turned into superstition, like that of women who came from Yerevan with a belief that the sores on their legs would be heeled if an old woman named Tamar here first sweeps the floor with a besom and then brushes their legs with that broom. “We believe in that, my parents had once brought me here, and I bring my children, my friends,” says Yelena from Yerevan. Hripsime Tadevosyan, a 33-year-old resident of the village of Balahovit, visits the pilgrimage place every year together with her family. This day for them is a festival. “I have come to extend my thanks to God that I have a healthy family, this year I have had a healthy baby,” says Hripsime.
- Sara Khojoyan
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Today in Armenian history- 1847 Summit Meeting of the representatives of the Transcaucasian Armenian community.
- 1847 With the participation of the gentry and commoners, the National, Ecclesiastic, and Supreme Council is created in Constantinople. It is the first step towards the creation of the "Constitution".
- 1859 A Committee, consisting of 5 clergymen and 14 laymen, is struck in Constantinople to write the "Constitution". The Chariman was Rusinian.
- 1945 End of World War Two (known as the "Great Patriotic War" in the USSR).
- 1964 Death of Vahan Totomyants, professor and public figure.
- 1992 Shooshee (Artsakh) is liberated after 71 years of occupation by Azeri Turks.
- 1994 Protocol negotiated in the Artsakh War and signed in Bishkek (Kirgizstan) by the parliamentary speakers of Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Artsakh as mediated by Presidents Boris Yeltsin of Russia and Nursultan Nazarbayev of Kazakhstan. This was the first recognition of Artsakhs distinctiveness as a political and territorial entity in the negotiations. Azerbaijan occupied 750 sq. km. (15%) of Artsakhs territory, while Artsakh occupied 7059 sq. km. (8%) of territory considered to have traditionally been possessed by Azerbaijan.
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