THE ARMENIAN APOSTOLIC CHURCH
Pontifical Legation of the Western Europe
Pontifical Legation of the Western Europe
The Armenian Apostolic Church, like most churches, uses a liturgical calendar, but has her unique features to mark its feasts and fasts and seasons. All Armenian hierarchical Sees except the Jerusalem one use the Gregorian calendar; the Jerusalem See follows the Jullian calendar.
We have two major categories:
Dominical Feasts: Every Sunday is a dominical feast day, our weekly feast, our weekly celebration. The Armenian word for Sunday is Giragi, which comes from Kyriaki (in Greek), the meaning of the Lord or the Lord’s. So, Sunday (Giragi) is the Lord’s day, a dominical day (derooni/deroonagan or). On Sundays, all the festivities in our Church are dedicated to the resurrection of Jesus Christ, and on certain Sundays, other aspects of the redemptive work of the Lord Jesus Christ are also celebrated (for instance, the feast of Pentecost).
Feasts of Saints: In addition to the dominical feast, we have feasts of saints. In our tradition, saints are commemorated on Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays.
There are also days of fasting, days set aside for self-restraint and self-examination in light of the gospel. Our church designates Wednesdays and Fridays as days of fasting. The biggest and the largest fasting period is the Great Lent before the Easter celebration.
Annually the Armenian Church has five principal feasts: Theophany, Easter, Transfiguration of our Lord Jesus Christ, Assumption of the Holy Mother of God, and the Exaltation of the Holy Cross.
These and all other major feast (except the Ascension and the Pentecost) have a certain period of fasting as preparatory for the feast celebration.
The Armenian Church has both movable and fixed feast days. While the moving ones depend on the day of the Easter, the fixed ones are the following:
Source․ www.sacredtradition.am
