Part 2 — Chapter III Christian Folk Festivals

The second group of festivals comprises those newly created by the church, such as the Blessing of the Grapes, New Year, Easter, and Christmas. I wish also to include in this group a few of the peculiarly characteristic church ceremonies which also have a distinct festival value for the people, i.e., the ceremony of the “Washing of Feet” on Maundy Thursday, “Khatchanguist” or the “Blessing of Water,” the consecration of the Katholikos, and the manufacture of the “holy oil.”

Section 1. Christmas, Easter, and New Year

The church makes up amply in the Easter festival for any lack of participation at New Year. Forty-eight days of rigid lenten abstinence, during which time no meat is eaten, precede the festivities of Easter Day. The first two or three days of the Holy Week are given over to housecleaning, which however must be finished by Thursday in order that the people may attend the ceremonies at church which continue until Easter Day. On Thursday afternoon “the Washing of the Feet,” to be described later, commences, and the service continues until past midnight. On Saturday all go to the bath, which is made an essential part of the week’s celebrations, and on the afternoon of the same day the real Easter service, called the Lighting of the Lights, begins. The church is first illuminated on Easter Eve, for on the three preceding days of mourning and sorrow the altar shrine is kept closed and no candles are lit. Even the congregation holds lighted wax candles while the triumphal songs are chanted by the robed choir of little boys.

Perhaps the boys enjoy Easter most of all. Provided with red Easter eggs, they collect in groups, whereupon there follows a most vivacious competition to win each other’s eggs by clashing them together. The champion egg is used until it is broken, when a new champion is quickly brought forth. This process continues as long as there are two or more unbroken eggs, the game being won when all of the broken eggs are in the possession of the boy who holds the champion egg. Picnic day, or the “Day of the Dead,” follows Easter Day, as I have described it, and it is singularly strange that a “day of resurrection” should be followed by a “day of the dead,” when prayers are said and offerings given in sacrifice for the departed. But people are not mindful of such little incongruities; they are simple and carry out the festival celebrated by their fathers, much as their fathers celebrated it.

There is thus considerable similarity between Easter and the Christmas festivities, which is probably due to more or less sameness in the church ceremonies. These ceremonies, always well attended, are made attractive to the people by beautiful displays of flowers, vested choir boys, the charm of whose singing can only be understood by those who have heard them; also by special singing, not by the congregation, but by those who can sing, and with such enticing little additions as the Lighting of Lights. The services are thus as much and as real a part of the day’s rejoicings as the feasts and social visits, and if they are designed consciously or unconsciously to give active expression to the sentiment of loyalty to the church one must admit that the expression is a perfectly free and natural one. Abstinences do not make the festivities attractive, to be sure, and there are more unfortunate communities who can not afford so lavish a display as others; but flowers need only to be picked from the fields, and boys there are always, even in the poorest churches. The holiday rejoicing has somewhat more of the serious blend which is to be contrasted with the more perfect gaiety of New Year’s Day, and is probably due to the weightiness of its religious significance of which one is constantly reminded, not only by the services at the church but also by the salutations of visitors and the necessary replies, always the same. But even the gaiety of New Year is not to be compared with the perfect lightness and freedom of merriment that characterize some aspects of Vartavar, nor do any of the Christian folk festivals have the completeness of Vartavar.

Section 2. Special Church Ceremonies

Together with this second group of festivals including as they do Christmas, Easter, New Year, and the Blessing of the Grapes, I wish to include a short series of church ceremonies all of which have a very distinct festival value, beside their value in being singularly characteristic of the Armenian church. They are distinctly different from the festivals of the preceding section, in that the festivities are incidental to a ceremony peculiar to the Armenian church. The “Washing of Feet,” the “Blessing of the Water,” the consecration of the Katholikos, and the manufacture of the holy oil, are those I desire to describe.

The kneeling posture and the prostration is again clearly in evidence, which together with what has been said is sufficient to show that this attitude, especially among the common people, is a very ordinary one and is therefore to be regarded merely as a very generally recognized posture of worship, and not at all significant necessarily of “conviction of sin” or a “feeling of penitence,” which is nevertheless suggested. The church at Koulpe must have been a very poor one not to have benches, but it had its little chorus of boys, and the people participated in much the same way as in the little church in New York, although nearly a hundred years have passed since Dubois attended the simple service.

The chief social value of these ceremonies lies in the fact that they bring large groups of people together under unusual circumstances, all of which adds importance to the various rites and festivities of the occasion. Especially is this true of the consecration of the Katholikos, which may occur twice or at the most three times in a generation. For this reason and also because of the authority and position of the Katholikos, not only as head of the church, but also in a very real sense, as head of the nation, this ceremony is attended by many pilgrims from the various sections of the country. Having assembled, the occasion is thus made a great deal more of than if it were an ordinary event. The day is a festival day in the full meaning of the term. Besides the services there is the banquet, the special choir, and the band. The relics kept in the treasury, which it is probable that most people who come have not seen before; also the holy churches of St. Gaiane and St. Rhipsime, which are visited by small groups throughout the day; and most of all the sacred altar of the Cathedral, where Christ descended in the vision of St. Gregory, are special attractions. And then there is the library where many ancient and precious manuscripts are exhibited, the institution of the monastery, the garden of the Katholikos, the printing press, and the seminary, all of which are of interest to the spectator. In fact there is sufficient to induce the pilgrims to remain for a number of days, which many of them do. The grounds are provided with a pilgrim’s court surrounded by guest chambers utilized at this time. Naturally enough the various monuments suggest the traditions and legends with which they are connected, such as the traditions of St. Gregory, Tiridates, the legends of St. Rhipsime and St. Gaiane, and the other legends associated with the introduction of Christianity. Although centered about a religious ceremony which probably lasts no longer than fifteen minutes, the occasion is thus made a festival, and is about as important in fostering a real sentiment of patriotism and of church loyalty as any other single festival.

The ceremony of the manufacture of the holy oil is not of such central importance. It also, however, has the advantage of not occurring very frequently, coming as it does only once in every four years. This together with the general utility of the oil in all of the various church ceremonies, plus the superstitions connected with it, is sufficient to induce pilgrims to make the journey to Sis in Cilicia, where the ceremony is held. It is again this assembly of pilgrims that gives the ceremony a social importance. In a nation like the United States where all parts are connected by railroads, telegraphs, and telephones, such a pilgrimage would have comparatively little social value. Except for government centers, there are no telegraphs in Armenia, the telephone is known only in a few cities, and railroads there are none. This lack of communication gives such ceremonies to which pilgrimages are made a very special social value which they otherwise would not at all have. The electoral assemblies spoken of have the same value, and for the same reason. The Armenian is not a person to be silent, and talks even when prudence is the better part of valour. He criticizes, condemns, and praises openly, fearlessly, and carelessly, and such a gathering of pilgrims, or electors, if it means anything, would mean a wholesale exchange of facts relating to current events, opinions, and rumors with reference to politics, religion, and every phase of social and industrial life.

The Blessing of the Water can not be said to have so great a social value, occurring as it does in some parts of the country once every week. And yet this service is unusually well attended, largely because of the superstitions connected with the blessed water. Religion here appears to offer its biggest attraction to the less fortunate, such as the rheumatic, the tubercular, the dyspeptic, the epileptic, and the feeble-minded. But enough facts have been mentioned to show that the Armenian church is something more than an institution of cure and relief. It has identified itself too completely with the common life by keeping alive the streams and cross currents of social activity to admit of such a supposition.

The ceremony of Maundy Thursday, or Washing of the Feet, is, of the four I have mentioned, of the least social importance. But it is generally attended, especially by the women who are compelled by the ban of custom to complete their house-cleaning before this service begins. And then too, it is the commencement of the Easter celebration, and as such has a distinct festival value. I have reviewed them therefore in the order of their social importance. The consecration of the Katholikos first; second the making of holy oil; third, the Blessing of the Water, and finally, the Washing of the Feet, which complete the second group of festivals.