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“We must pay the most careful attention, therefore, to what we have heard, so that we do not drift away.” —Hebrews 2:1

Since being in college, I have found it difficult to maintain my relationship with God. I am no longer home to attend church every Sunday and with all of the distractions college brings it is hard to stay connected with the Lord. This verse is a good reminder, however, that as long as I keep God’s teachings close to heart, I will not drift from him even if I cannot attend church.

In this very secularized world, it is easy for individuals to stray from the path God wants us to follow. However, if we think often of what we have learned and heard, we can override temptation and remain close to Him.

Is there something in your life that makes you more vulnerable to drifting from God?

Activity: The next time you feel yourself drifting from God, read attentively for 15 minutes from one of the Gospels and reflect on the reading.

“But, brothers and sisters, when we were orphaned by being separated from you for a short time (in person, not in thought), out of our intense longing we made every effort to see you.  For we wanted to come to you—certainly I, Paul, did, again and again—but Satan blocked our way. For what is our hope, our joy, or the crown in which we will glory in the presence of our Lord Jesus when he comes? Is it not you?”  —I Thessalonians 2: 17-19

It’s easy to think that your faith is all about you and God. But here St. Paul is saying something amazing. The most joyful and glorious part of his faith are the people he is serving, the people he loves. In fact, he is certain that when Jesus comes again and Paul is finally in his presence, it will be the hearts he brought to faith in Jesus that will be his greatest joy.

This is a great reminder. As we get ready to celebrate the birth of Jesus, let’s remember to share the joy of faith with others. Without trying to be corny, I really do think that that’s the gift that keeps on giving.

Does your joy lie chiefly in others?

Activity: Make an effort to attend your church’s Bible study or charity project. Faith is not a go-it-alone proposition. Enjoy the fellowship and then reach out to others.

My responsibilities this summer as an intern at the Diocese were twofold. I spent my weeks working for the Krikor and Clara Zohrab Information Center and the office of the executive director.

I had no idea before I arrived at the Krikor and Clara Zohrab Information Center the extent to which the center houses so many important books, journals, newspapers, and artifacts, all of which are integral to understanding the history of the Armenian people and culture.  I helped organize and catalogue recently donated books and had an opportunity to learn more about the center’s history, resources, and rich collection.

In the office of the executive director, a portion of my work focused on this year’s Diocesan theme: “Vocations: the Call to Serve—Ministry of the Faithful.” I compiled the feedback and notes from this year’s Diocesan Assembly, Clergy Conference, and ACYOA General Assembly in order to explore how clergy and lay members understand lay ministry.  It was interesting to find both common themes and individual perspectives emerge from these responses. Based on the feedback, we were able to develop plans for further lay ministry activities in the parishes. I began working on a handbook for the parishes and interviewed clergy about their role in supporting lay ministry.

In addition, our internship program allowed us to partake in matins, Bible study, and Armenian language classes.  It was refreshing to begin each day at St. Vartan Cathedral or with Bible study, and I can easily say I am more motivated than I have ever been to master the Armenian language. During our internship, we also visited St. Vartan Camp, St. Nersess Seminary, and the Holy Cross Church in Washington Heights, NY.  These experiences enriched my time here more than I would have expected.

An additional bonus to the Diocese’s internship program was our involvement in the Armenian General Benevolent Union’s New York Summer Internship Program.  Living with and getting to know 30 other young Armenians from all over the world was absolutely incredible.  We were able to participate in lectures, networking events, and AGBU Young Professional activities.  Some of the young professionals have become our mentors and friends during our time here, and that has added an entirely new and unexpected dimension to our internship.

One of my most memorable experiences was a dinner hosted by Archbishop Khajag Barsamian for the AGBU interns. It was nice to welcome my fellow interns to the place I’ve called home for the past eight weeks and to show them St. Vartan Cathedral. The dinner allowed us to learn more about the Diocese in a warm environment, and to have the opportunity to engage with the Primate.

But perhaps most heartwarming was meeting the dynamic people involved in the day-to-day operations of the Diocese.  Additionally, we have been lucky to meet a number of clergy and lay people from nearby parishes, who took the time to discuss with us an array of topics related to the Armenian Church.

Andrea Gumushian, a senior at Wellesley College, shelves books at the Zohrab Center.

Adrienne Ashbahian, chapter relations coordinator of ACYOA Central Council, has always been an active member of the Armenian Church.

Influenced by her parents’ strong faith, Adrienne has sought to immerse herself in the Armenian community by attending church, Armenian summer camps, leadership conferences, and other church-related programs.

For Adrienne, the ACYOA is important because it provides unity in Christ through the five circles of the cross.

“The five circles—worship, witness, education, service, and fellowship—say everything about who we are as an organization. To me, the ACYOA is a family. It is an organization where I can share my love of being Armenian, and most importantly my love for others as a Christian,” Adrienne explains.

To strengthen the ACYOA, Adrienne and the other Central Council members plan to provide more spiritual programming and opportunities to reach out to the organization’s alumni this year.

Youth involvement in the ACYOA is very important, Adrienne says, as is a long-term commitment to supporting the organization.

“I feel that if we can get more people to connect with their spirituality, they will feel a responsibility to the church, and more youth will want to assume leadership roles in the church,” she explains.

—By Melanie Quinn (This is the second installment of a seven-part series profiling members of the ACYOA Central Council. Melanie Quinn, a senior at the University of New Hampshire, is interning this summer in the Diocesan Department of Youth and Education.)

Adrienne Ashbahian serves as the chapter relations coordinator on the ACYOA Central Council.

Working on the production of a YouTube  video on the Diocese’s recent Jerusalem pilgrimage got me interested in the Armenian presence and tradition in the Holy Land. There is such a rich history of Armenian culture and religion in Jerusalem that a lot of people do not realize.

Jerusalem is broken up into four quarters: Christian, Muslim, Jewish and Armenian. The Armenian Patriarch resides in the Armenian Quarter, which houses seminary buildings, the Sts. James Cathedral, the Gulbenkian Library, and other sites. Armenians also have strong ties to sites in the Christian Quarter, like the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, which is jointly maintained by the Oriental and Eastern Orthodox and Roman Catholics.

One tradition in the Armenian Quarter of Jerusalem is the art of ceramic tile making.  It originated in the city of Kutahya, in Turkey, with members of the Ohannessian, Balian, and Karakashian families.

Balian, a potter, and Karakashian, an artist, were brought over to Jerusalem from Kutahya in 1919, to restore the ceramic tiles on the Dome of the Rock, the iconic mosque in the Muslim Quarter.  That project never seemed to launch, but once in the region, Balian and Karakashian opened a workshop in 1922, producing their hand-painted tiles and pottery for other people.  The descendants of these families continue to run a few studios in present-day Jerusalem.

The tiles depict biblical scenes, symbols, and symmetrical patterns. The most characteristic color on the tiles is a deep cobalt blue; yet turquoise, greens, browns, yellows, and sometimes pinks are also popular choices for illustrating birds, angels, saints, vines, leaves, flowers, and Armenian lettering.

Artists still keep this tradition alive, invigorating it with new perspectives.  Linda Ganjian—an Armenian artist with a background in three-dimensional sculpture—recently turned to tile-making with fellow artist Elif Uras for Neery Melkonian and Defne Ayas’ “Blind Dates” Project shown last November in the Pratt Manhattan Gallery.

“I thought it would be interesting to try to portray my family history through the visual vocabulary of the Kutahya tile,” she said in a recent interview, describing how she discovered her interest in the “the simplicity, the decorative, floral and even surreal elements” of Ottoman-era ceramics. On her collaboration with Elif, Linda said that they “weren’t trying to create a coherent patterned look,” and that in fact inspiration came from “images of old church and mosque walls, where tiles are damaged and replaced with completely different tiles, lending a kind of patchwork-like effect”—an effect that their finished piece “Navelstone” (pictured below) reflects.

It is exciting to see contemporary artists rework age-old customs in this way, making them relevant to our day, while the Balian and Karakashian studios still stand in modern Jerusalem, preserving the history of the custom by producing art in their classic style.  Visitors to Jerusalem should take time to notice the Kutahya tiles that still decorate the walls of the Sts. James Cathedral in the Armenian Quarter.

—Melanie Panosian, a junior at Muhlenberg College, is interning this summer in the Diocesan Communications department.

Clockwise from top: A tile from Sts. James Cathedral in Jerusalem's Armenian quarter, Linda Ganjian and Elif Uras' "Navelstone," and two details from the sculpture.

A detail from "Navelstone."

Krisdos haryav ee merelotz! Christ is risen from the dead!

Do any other words convey such hope and meaning for human life?

That feeling is especially powerful during Easter, as we re-enact the events surrounding Christ’s resurrection. Imagine what it must have been like to be among the disciples on the day when the Risen Lord appeared before them. In that instant, it must have seemed like the entire world had changed.

And indeed, it had.

But we today don’t have to “just imagine” what it was like. As members of the church—the institution established by Christ himself—we actually experience that world-changing moment.  We enter into the presence of the living, resurrected Christ every time we participate in the holy badarak.

That is part of the gift of himself, which Jesus Christ offered to all those who love and follow him. This Sunday, please join our church at a local parish, and enter into our Lord’s presence—as his first followers did on the first Easter.

Add your own voice to the joy-filled chorus around the world, who will pronounce the Easter greeting of the Armenian Church:

Krisdos haryav ee merelotz! Orhnyal eh harootiunun Krisdosee!
Christ is risen from the dead!  Blessed is the resurrection of Christ!

"The Resurrection of Christ," 18th century Gospel, San Lazarro, Venice.

The steward is a figure who comes up in many of Jesus’ parables—a “stock character,” we might say, who would have been very recognizable to Christ’s listeners.

What did stewards do, in the time of Jesus?  What made them so interesting to our Lord?

They were, first of all, servants. But a special kind of servant: They were caretakers, or business managers, as we might say today. They were not owners; but the true owner, the master, had given the steward responsibility and authority. And to be given such things meant that the steward was in a position of trust.

Clearly, Jesus saw this special relationship of “stewardship” as symbolic of the greater dynamic between God and man. In the deepest sense, we are not the owners of the good things in our lives: our families, our healthy bodies, our heritage, our church. To be sure, we are indeed responsible for all these things, and we cannot neglect our responsibility. But our highest responsibility is not really to satisfy ourselves, but to please God.

Jesus’s parable about an unjust steward who was accused of cheating his master (Luke 16:1-17—the reading for the third Sunday of Lent) is famous for being difficult to understand.  But it gives us some very concrete clues about what it means to be a “good steward.”

Jesus tells us: “He that is faithful in a little, is faithful also in much” (Lk 16:10).  He asks: “If you have been dishonest with another man’s belongings, who will give you something of your own?” (Lk 16:12).  And he concludes with the famous saying: “No servant can serve two masters” (Lk 16:13).

These words of wisdom should be “food for thought” for us, during our journey through Lent.

But the most important words in the parable come at the very beginning, when the Master asks the Steward: “What is this I hear about you? Give me an account of your stewardship” (Lk 16:2).

Surely, this is the larger point Jesus was making throughout his teaching on stewardship.  God has entrusted us with many serious responsibilities.  He has given us many beautiful gifts and blessings.  But we are called to make an account.

When our Master does so, will we show ourselves to have been good stewards?  Or neglectful ones?

But let’s return for some final thoughts on the parable of the Unjust Steward.  As mentioned, it’s difficult to understand.  Some interpreters strive mightily to make the desperate, swindling steward into an exemplar of moral conduct.  But these attempts are unpersuasive, given Jesus’ larger themes about what constitutes being a “good steward.”

Perhaps a key to its meaning can be found in an overlooked point in Luke’s account.  We learn (Lk 14:14) that Jesus was addressing the Pharisees: the religious teaching authorities of Jesus’ time, entrusted with the job of telling the people what God wanted from them.  But in order to make themselves popular, they had “watered down” the message: like the unjust steward, they had “discounted the debt” that man should rightfully owe to God.

Through the parable of the Unjust Steward, Jesus seems to have been warning the Pharisees—and all authorities in positions of trust—that while this might make them welcome in the homes of men, eventually there would be an accounting—and did they think that God would congratulate them on their shrewdness?

In this reading, Jesus is being ironic when he says (Lk 16:8), “The lord commended the unjust steward, because he had done wisely.” But that mood certainly fits better with the stern lessons about honesty, integrity, and the impossibility of serving two masters, which immediately follow the parable.

Read the passage for yourself. What do you think?

A 17th-century Dutch etching of the Parable of the Unjust Steward.

(This brief description of the tradition of Lenten fasting is adapted from “The Golden Chain of the Sundays of Great Lent” (1971) by Archbishop Shnork Kalustian.)

Great Lent is a time for Christians to prepare for the glorious resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ through prayer, introspection, and fasting.

The Scriptural basis for Lent resides in the 40-day period Christ spent in the wilderness following his baptism. In the words of St. Matthew’s Gospel (4:12): “Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. And he fasted forty days and forty nights, and afterward he was hungry.”

The first recorded mention of Great Lent was at the First Council of Nicaea in 325 A.D. (the same council also established the Nicene Creed used today in the Armenian Church). The reference to Lent occurs in a decision issued by the council to hold one of its three annual meetings before the 40-day Lenten period.

Five years later, in 330 A.D., St. Athanasius of Alexandria—one of the most influential early Church Fathers—called on his community to fast for 40 days before Holy Week. In these early days of the Church, the faithful were permitted one meal a day during Lent (the daily meals were prepared without meat or other animal products). Fasting was understood not as a complete abstinence from all food, but rather as a limiting of one’s intake to the most essential needs for survival.

The Apostolic Cannons—a series of decrees attributed to the Apostles and compiled in the second half of the 4th century—further stressed the need to observe fasting during Great Lent. According to article eight of the document, “The Apostles directed that 40 days of fasting must be observed to reject all evil, sin, and food before the days of sufferings of our Savior.”

In the centuries that followed, the tradition of fasting continued to evolve. Eventually churches in the West permitted the faithful to take more than one meatless meal per day. This practice gradually spread to the East.

Today the Armenian Church prescribes forbearance from all animal products for 40 days preceding Holy Week (fish is permitted on Sundays). In our day, many find this difficult and choose to keep the fast only on Wednesdays and Fridays.

Christ in the Desert (1872) by Ivan Kramskoy.

As many of our web visitors learned yesterday, the website of the Eastern Diocese was hacked on the afternoon of Wednesday, September 8. We regret that as a result, people coming to the site expecting to find the peaceful message of the Armenian Church were instead greeted with a message of hate directed at Armenians and Christians in general.  We acted quickly to restore normal operations, and we are thankful that we were able to do so within several hours of the incident.

The admittedly unpleasant situation did have a kind of “silver lining,” however.  In the course of a difficult afternoon, we were extremely touched by the outpouring of concern and support from so many readers, who have come to rely on the Diocese’s website and who visit it frequently in the course of their daily activities. In yesterday’s circumstances, our readers’ kind messages of solidarity were overwhelming—and very much appreciated.

As always, your enthusiasm and goodwill encourage us to do our best for the Armenian Church and its people.  Thanks.