on November 21, her Conception on December 9, two Holy Rood days, the memory of various apparitions of our Lord and feasts of the Church),[1] and saints' days, of which they have a great number, including many Armenian saints.[2] A good idea of the Armenian Church is special feasts in memory of the Councils of Nicæa (Saturday after the third Sunday after the Dormitio B.M.V.),[3] Constantinople I (Saturday after Sexagesima), and Ephesus (Saturday after the fourth Sunday after Transfiguration).[4] Their Lent (Karasnortk) lasts forty-eight days before Easter; the week after the tenth Sunday before Easter is a fast (called Aratshavoratz),[5] also seven days before the Epiphany, Whitsunday, Transfiguration, Assumption, Exaltation of Holy Rood (Sunday between September 11 and 17), and before the first Sunday after Pentecost (the fast of Elias). Every Wednesday and Friday is a day of abstinence.[6] Altogether they have 160 fast-days, and 117 abstinence-days in the year. The prayers on these days are of penitence and for the dead.[7]
All Armenian services are in classical Armenian. Except Amen, Alleluia, Orthi, Proschūmen, everything is in that language. "Kyrie eleison" becomes "Ter oghormia," which the people cry out incessantly. Their liturgical books (under Latin influence) are the clearest and best arranged of any among Eastern Churches. They have eight: (1) The Directory or Calendar (Donatsoitz), corresponding to the Byzantine Typikon; (2) Liturgy,[8] containing
- ↑ See Ormanian: op. cit. 139-141.
- ↑ Ib. 143-149.
- ↑ The Byzantine Calendar has this on Sunday after Ascension, the Jacobites on May 29, Copts on November 9.
- ↑ Coptic, September 12. The idea of a feast in memory of a General Council is common in Eastern Churches. On the first Sunday of July the Byzantines keep "the holy fathers of the Six Œcumenic Synods." We could spare several of our feasts for such a memory as this.
- ↑ The fast of Nineveh (cf. p. 287).
- ↑ Except in the Epiphany octave and Paschal time.
- ↑ More about the Calendar in Ormanian, pp. 136-149; Nilles: Kalendarium manuale, ii. 554-636. The present custom is to keep the strict fast (dzuom, no food at all from sunrise till 3 P.M.), only during the aratshavoratz and Lent. Other fast-days are only really days of abstinence (bahkh, which forbids flesh-meat, fish, lacticinia, wine and oil). But for this, too, moderating dispensations can be obtained. The actual vigil of a feast has a mild abstinence (navagadikh) which forbids only flesh-meat.
- ↑ Badarakamadoitz, or Korhrtadedr (book of the oblation).
