It is spring and it is Holy Week in Christendom. That means this is a most important time in church as well: the Armenian Church. Beginning with Palm Sunday through Easter Sunday there are four church services spanning from the joy of Palm Sunday to the sadness of Maundy Thursday and Good Friday to the joy of the resurrection on Saturday evening and, of course, Easter Sunday. Beyond the church, the Saturday evening and Easter Sunday feasts are beautiful celebrations of the season, and in non-pandemic times, wonderful gatherings of family and friends.
On Palm Sundays, the Armenian Church like all churches passes out Palms. Many Armenians make crosses out of the palms. My maternal grandfather taught me how to do this when I was a youngster and I have been doing it ever since. I have seen other’s do it more artistically, carefully trimming their palms, and employing a more impressive and neater weaves. I thought about upping my game, but no… I am sticking with the method Levon Merian taught me. I can whip up dozens of crosses quickly using his method and pass them out to family and friends. I may have to pass this skill along to my grandkids.
Another highlight of the Armenian Easter Season are the egg fights. No, we are not throwing eggs at each other. It is not a snowball fight with eggs. It is much tamer and a mixture of fun and peppered with a bit of serious competition. Everyone selects a colored, Easter that are traditionally hardboiled in onionskins to give them that unique reddish hue. We hold the eggs as in the photo with the more pointy ends facing each other. The person holding the egg that is above the other taps the egg with a bit of force. One of the eggs crack, the other does not. The person whose egg does not break is the winner. The loser turns their egg around and the process is repeated with the loser using the blunter end of their egg. Most of the time, the pointier end cracks the blunter end. Winners play winners and the person with the last unbroken egg is the winner of the contest.
Selection of the egg is important. In the boiling of the eggs, the egg can shrink and leave a pocket of air between the hardboiled white and the pointy part of the egg. As such eggs are instant losers, you will see the seasoned elders tap the egg on their front teeth so that by sound and feel they determine if the egg is
a good contender. Over the years, people have tried to color the tips of the eggs with nail polish and other paints or epoxies thinking this will give them an edge. You have to pay attention lest a sneaky relative tries to use a wooden, plastic, or even marble egg.
Everyone believes that the person holding the upper egg, the person doing the tapping has the advantage. The person holding the egg below knows that the tapper might try to tap the off center instead of hitting the pointy part to the pointy part, so they hold their egg so just a wee bit of the tip is exposed. The tapper may protest saying they have covered too much. The holder may expose a bit more of their egg… or they may not. It is all a part of the fun gamesmanship.
You might think it is all about the kids with the adults “letting” the youngsters win. Nay, nay. Everyone plays to win… but win or lose it is always good-natured and full of laughter and joy. I cannot think of an Easter when we didn’t have an egg fight.
When we lived in Connecticut and were part of the Armenian Church of the Holy Ascension in Trumbull. Our priest Der Untzag Nalbandian and his wife Setta would invite us over for dinner after the Saturday night liturgy in which it was revealed that Christ had risen. During one of his sermons, Der Untzag related how in the old days when everyone walked to the church, they would walk home with a candle lit in the church. It was symbolic of spread the light, the good news, of the resurrection and taking that light home. It sounded wonderful to me. So, at the end of the service that evening, everyone was given a slim taper candle and went up to the altar and lit it. Before leaving the church to get in their cars and go home, everyone wisely put their candles out. I thought differently. I told Judy to drive and I was going to keep the candle going and take it to Yeretgeen Setta who was home preparing the dinner. Luckily, their home was also in Trumbull and close to the church. Setta was so happy by the gesture and we felt so old school, we repeated this renewed tradition every year and actually bought a lantern for that exact purpose.
I have another tradition I picked up while living in Connecticut that is not Armenian but most definitely Middle Eastern. We had many Armenian friends from Lebanon. Once at the home of one of those friends, Gaby and Tina, we were talking about the famous Lebanese chanteuse Fairuz. I was commenting on how magnificent I thought her voice is and Gaby asked if I ever heard her sing the Good Friday Hymns. I said that I had not. He looked for a CD he had to let me listen, but could not find it. A few weeks later, when I saw him at church he gave me a copy he made of the CD. Sometime later, I sat down to do some work and popped the CD in to check it out. I got zero work done as I was blown away by amazingly beautiful and moving voice of the famous soprano born in 1934.
From that first listen to the beautiful, moving, and soulful Good Friday hymns masterfully performed by Fairuz, I have listened to that CD every Good Friday since. I am moved everytime I listen to these hymns. I would venture to say, these beautiful laments would move anyone no matter what their religious beliefs.
Here is the full album from YouTube:
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