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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 …
In January, the Armenian Church commemorates the Holy Fathers Athanasius and Cyril. Athanasius is known as the “champion of orthodoxy” and “Father of Orthodoxy.” He served as bishop of Alexandria for 45 years . He attended the Council of Nicaea in 325 AD. He is respected and revered in the Armenian Church. Cyril of Alexandria succeeded his uncle, Theophilus…
I heard about two boys who were playing in the snow. They decided to have a little competition to see who could walk the straightest line. One boy kept stopping, turning back to check his path. But the other boy never looked back. He locked his gaze on a tree in the distance and walked straight toward it. When they reached the end, the first boy’s line was perfectly straight. The second boy’s path was all over the place. He asked, “How did you do that?” His friend said, “I didn’t look back. I kept my eyes on the tree.”
That’s a picture of how we are to walk in faith. Some people start out strong, but along the way, they get distracted. They start looking back at past mistakes, past hurts, and past regrets. They keep questioning, “Am I on the right path? Did I make the right decisions?”
In 1915, the population of Adana was deported and the Bedelian family reached Aleppo. One of Vahan Bedelian’s friends, who by then was a good violin teacher, arranged a job for him as music and violin teacher at the Aleppo School of Art. With this job, he managed, after considerable difficulties, to obtain a permit from the chief of police to stay in Aleppo with the eleven members of his family.
They stayed there until the end of World War I and returned to Adana when French forces were stationed in Cilicia. Bedelian gave his first concert in 1920. When the French evacuated Cilicia in 1921, he went to Cyprus, where he devoted himself to music and teaching. In 1932 he replaced famous composer and conductor Parsegh Ganachian