Posted at 11:13 p.m. EST Sunday, January 9, 2000
Christmas came Sunday for the Charlotte area's tiny band of Armenian Christians.
More than 100 members of the St. Sarkis Armenian Apostolic Church of Charlotte, NC celebrated the birth and baptism of Jesus Christ with incense, communion and a liturgy that took nearly three hours to complete. Even though most of the prayers were chanted in Armenian, the Christian message of the season was universal:
"Today we are gathered to celebrate Armenian Christmas," declared Archbishop Khajag Barsamian of New York, head of the diocese that covers east of the Mississippi. "This gives us an opportunity to recognize our mission - to bring salvation to each individual, to each family, to the entire community, to society.
"Christ is born," Barsamian said, first in Armenian and then in English. "Blessed is the revelation of Christ."
Christmas for Christians from the former Soviet republic falls on January 6. It's a holiday marked by lighting candles, singing hymns and visiting loved ones -- and by the kind of celebrating that Western Christians have come to know. Waiting to dig in to the desserts at a reception after worship, teens talked excitedly about the new watches and remote-control cars they found under the tree.
Christianity was declared the state religion in Armenia in A.D.301. The nation, one the smallest of the Soviet republics, is known to many by political unrest and the 1988 earthquake that killed more than 25,000 people. It is home now to 3.5million of the world's 8million Armenian Christians. Another 1.2million live in the United States, including 200 families who have settled in and around Charlotte.
One reason for Barsamian's first visit to Charlotte was to lead Sunday's service at St. John's Episcopal Church on Carmel Road.
The other was to encourage the Armenian community's drive to raise $1.2million to build a 12,600-square-foot church on Park Road across from the new Cypress retirement community. Church leaders say $212,000 has been raised so far.
By establishing its own faith home in 2001 (the 1,700th anniversary of Armenia's becoming Christian), the congregation plans to expand worship to once a week. Services are presently held one Sunday afternoon a month at St. John's Episcopal.
For all the excitement about building a church to unite Charlotte's Armenian community, Barsamian did what any good minister would do during Sunday's Christmas service. In two languages, he urged Christians to remember the reason for the season.
"We remember the reason Jesus came to this world," he said. "Jesus came to this world in order to bring the world into the life of God."