ARMENIAN CHRISTMAS CELEBRATED AT ST. JOHN

By David Luhrssen

St. John the Baptist Armenian Church celebrated the Feast of the Nativity and Theophany of Our Lord (“Armenian Christmas”) on January 7, in keeping with the community’s longstanding custom of observing the holiday on the Sunday closest to January 6.

In his Nativity homily, St. John’s parish priest, Rev. Fr. Guregh Hambardzumyan, spoke of the mystery of the Incarnation: Why did God become human? One answer is that through his birth in Bethlehem, Jesus, the Son of God, lowered Himself to enable humanity to raise ourselves by His example. After the Nativity, God was no longer an abstraction or a distant lawgiver, but a person who could speak to us directly in language we can understand.

Following the Badarak, Der Guregh, assisted by the parish’s longtime visiting pastor, Rev. Fr. Nareg Keutelian, performed the Blessing of the Water with Vladimir Babakhanov, age 8, as godfather of the ceremony.

As has been the custom for many decades, the members of St. John and friends gathered in the church hall following the distribution of holy water for a potluck meal, a community celebration of sharing. During the luncheon, MAV Scholarship Committee chairman Dr. Gary Seabrook announced the awarding of Michael Aram Vartanian Scholarships to Leo Dadian and Angelina Weitzer. Since the 1960s, the Vartanian Fund, an endowment managed by an independent Scholarship committee at St. John, has provided scholarships for college and college-bound students who have contributed to Wisconsin’s Armenian community through volunteer work.