Within the framework of “The Church and the Law” interview series, Iravaban.net discussed with Father Ashot Safaryan, the spiritual pastor of Holy Mother of God Church of Nor Nork 1st district, on the topic “New Year and Christmas from Armenian Apostolic Church viewpoint.”
-What is the Armenian Apostolic Church’s official position regarding New Year celebration, and how does it differ from the spiritual meaning of Christmas?
-New Year in church is marked with the Pomegranate Blessing ceremony, when on New Year’s Eve the pomegranate is blessed in church, symbolizing church life. As pomegranate has many seeds and these seeds are united within the peel, similarly we see church’s mystery in pomegranate. Just as pomegranate seeds separately can be crushed and spoil, we believe that church faithful, if disconnected from church community life, will retreat from their Christian conduct and manners. Pomegranate peel symbolizes church community life, which is emphasized on New Year’s Eve when pomegranate is blessed.
-How should a follower of the Armenian Apostolic Holy Church celebrate New Year?
-Sometimes people ask us, saying – if I am fasting, how can I behave during hospitality events, should I say I don’t want to eat, or can I simply say I am fasting? In our church fasting, prayer and mercy have their individual and communal nature. In individual cases perhaps one should cover, pray in secret, give mercy in secret, keep their fast in secret, but during communal prayers, fasting and mercies there’s no need to avoid, but should express. By speaking about this, a person testifies to Christ, testifies that they are a child of the Armenian Apostolic Church and through this testimony teaches others that it is necessary during fasting time to welcome the New Year with prayer and fasting, especially Jesus Christ’s birth. It is necessary that we as a nation can control our appetite for various foods and beverages and can welcome this period with fasting, which I think has recorded quite extreme situations for us. Months in advance people rush around to fill New Year tables, causing themselves additional worry. Some end up in debt, others are distressed by this race.
-Many people welcome the New Year expecting miracles, how justified is this?
-There are two important concepts that need clarification, one is hope, the other is optimism. The cause of hope is faith, if a person believes in God, their hope is real hope, while the cause of optimism is simply suggestion. We can suggest anything to ourselves, thus a person can fall into illusions.
-Many people also make various predictions on New Year’s Eve, how would you interpret this?
-Real faith cannot give rise to customs that are outside divine messages and commandments. Therefore, making predictions through any objects or items means not trusting God. One who can open their heart before God on New Year’s Eve, Christmas holiday, pray sincerely, they should be confident that their help comes from God, if we trust God, then resorting to any kind of predictions, sorcery or superstitious acts means trying to serve two masters. Therefore, the Christmas message is that we can renew our vow before God, renew our faith before God.
-How can a modern believer balance New Year’s secular celebrations and Christmas’s spiritual significance?
-If under the word secular we understand sin, excess, gluttony, drunkenness, then in no way, it has no commonality with divine commandments, but if by secular life we mean a person who is not officially in spiritual service, but is a child of the church, then it is necessary that they too, as church wholeness, as a pomegranate seed, be with that pomegranate.
Details in the video.
