Hello all,

I haven’t been posting as much as I originally intended to, because things have been stressful at work, and my time is pulled in several different directions.  I’m also struggling with insecurity about this blog… who am I to be writing about any of this?  I’m Armenian “by choice” and by marriage, but certainly no expert or authority.  Feeling some tension, that my time is better spent actually learning Armenian and church history, rather than writing about it.

But anyway, here are some of the things that have been happening, and we’re working on:

• We’re continuing to research Vartan’s family’s ancestral villages – Averag and Armash. Recent connections through the “Armenian Genealogy Հայկական Ծագումնաբանութիւն  Haygagan Dzakumnapanutyun” Facebook group, Ancestry DNA, and “Armenians of Van ( Վանեցի Հայեր )” Facebook group give me hope that I’m not the only person interested in rediscovering what life was like in these villages before the Genocide.
• We’re continuing to go through old family photos and objects, cataloguing them, and trying to preserve them.
• Just today, I shipped off a copy of the book Vartan’s father Jirair commissioned and was published in 1998 about Armash Seminary to a translator. They’re in England, so it might take a while for the book to get there and for us to get a quote back.  But I’m hoping we can get it translated into English.  Depending on who has the rights to the content, maybe we could get a small printing of the book in English too?
• Vartan and I just signed up for a course through the Armenian General Benevolent Union’s Online Virtual College – “Middle Age Armenian History, Part I.” It starts tonight!  How we’ll manage that with a baby and class in the evenings, who knows… but I’m excited.

That’s all I have the brain space for now.  Hope to be writing more frequently, as things calm down a little bit at work.

-Kalyn

Through the “Armenian Genealogy Հայկական Ծագումնաբանութիւն Haygagan Dzakumnapanutyun” Facebook group and Ancestry DNA, I have been lucky enough to connect with several families that have connections to the Armash Theological Seminary, which was an important spiritual center for Armenians before the Genocide, and where Vartan’s grandmother’s family was from.  We’re just starting to share stories over email and Google Drive, and I am so optimistic that other people are out there to help research and share the stories of Armash in English.

Reconnecting with them has reinvigorated my interest in researching the family history, so I went to Google Earth to see if any new photos of Armash (now called Akmese) had been put up in the last few years, since I last checked.

And to my dismay, I discovered that the beautiful old Armenian fountain in the middle of the town, in front of the mosque where Armash Seminary once stood, has recently been “renovated.”  Rather than preserving the structure as a historic building, they have completely plastered over the old stones, and (from what I can tell) erased any traces that it was once an Armenian structure.  It breaks my heart.

See these before and after photos:

In 2002, there were still Armenian symbols on stones around the fountain.

From 2011:

I knew they planned to do a restoration, but the rendering here didn’t look that “bad”:

And here’s what it looks like today:

• 
  The Eastern Diocese’s Bread & Salt podcast:  https://breadandsalt.org/category/podcasts/
• 
  St. John Armenian Church Podcast:  https://soundcloud.com/stjohnsf
• 
  The Saint Basil Podcast:  http://stbasil.net/the-st-basil-podcast

My father-in-law’s karasoonk / karasounk (40th day memorial service) was on Sunday. Suffice to say, it was super sad.

I’m really not the best person to write about the meaning behind the service, so I’ll just share out these two pieces of information about how and why Armenians pray for those who have passed away.

“It is a venerable tradition in the Armenian Church for families to request special requiem prayers on the 40th day and on subsequent anniversaries of the death of their loved ones. If the requiem services takes place on a Sunday, following the Divine Liturgy, the priest mentions the names of the deceased during the prayers of the Divine Liturgy.

According to the teachings of the Armenian Church, those who have died enter into a period of rest while awaiting our Lord’s glorious second coming at the end of time. But while separated from the Christian community, the souls that are at rest continue to be counted among the faithful, who “rest in the shadow of the church.” We therefore pray for them, as we pray for all of our earthly cares. Essentially, our prayer for the dead is that they rest in peace, that the Lord forgive them all of their sins and find them worthy of eternal life in the Father’s kingdom when Christ comes again.

And this article,

Why do we pray for the dead?

https://www.ilooys.com/single-post/2017/01/07/Why-do-we-pray-for-the-dead-1?fbclid=IwAR2hfGcOP3o1go9gkGmEG1TGTxbhi3Hbeg5iL0OxeS27x9Rk0xnqbZMB9kw

Our Saturday was really busy, with lots of cooking ahead of Jirair’s karasoonk (40th day memorial service) on Sunday.

It was good to get more practice with these Armenian recipes, and there are definitely future posts in the works.

We made:
Five 9×13 trays of spinach boereg
Two batches of imrig helva (which turned out pretty well this time!)
Big pot of gatnabour
About 90 tahini cookies
A ton of choereg, with two different recipes
Vospov kheyma

We also picked parsley leaves off stems for a few hours, and cut bags and bags of pita bread.  Some pictures of the mess below.

Pre-Lent celebration in the church’s cultural center /hall.