Translators for Today: An Anush Treat

celebrates the Feast of the Holy Translators, a new book is published (see article on right)

illustrated by my sister Anush Avejic. “When I Go to Church” translates our Faith to the youngest members of our Church community.

Perhaps it’s a coincidence that this book arrived in our hands this weekend. Perhaps it’s a bit more than coincidence. (Of course, you know my leaning on the question of chance….) But whatever the case, the truth is that our Armenian Church suffers from a problem of relevancy which is exasperated by language and articulation. I have written and commented about these issues extensively in the past. For today, I wish to focus on one solution which we find via this new publication, namely the use of art and color to simplify and transmit the faith.

The Translators of the Church – Mesrob Mashdots, David the Invincible, Yeghishe, to name a few – were men who took the complicated and simplified it. They used the basic art forms of language, letters, pictures, intellect to take the message of Love, Faith and Hope from the abstract to the tangible. They made Christ accessible! In very real terms, this new book, “When I Go to Church,” does exactly that. Anush has captured and thereby captivates her audience with forms and colors that take the most complicated expressions of liturgics and simplify them for spiritual consumption. Further, the book is inspirational, in that it reminds us about the simplicity of life and the forms around us. It inspires us to do the same: using our talents to make God’s Love accessible. Congratulations Anush and to all of us.

-Fr. Vazken