What did they take?

Armodoxy for Today: What did they take?

The fires around Los Angeles County have destroyed lives and property in large proportion. Yesterday, we asked, if faced with the order to evacuate your residence, what would you take? I hope you reflected on it and came up with some answers.

It was five days since the fire evacuated us from our house, and only two days since we returned. Thankful to have a home to come to, we began cleaning up the ashes that spread over our house and lawn like a gray blanket. It was Sunday and I was sent to Utah to celebrate the Holy Divine Liturgy for the small community of Armenians that live near Salt Lake City. Twice a year, our Diocese sends a priest there to tend to the spiritual needs of the people.

There is no choir and there are no altar servers. I took a deacon with me, so that he could assist me in the Liturgy and be a second voice in the singing of the hymns. I was thinking of all that happened over the last several days. In retrospect, it was all so surreal. Remembering the events of the fire was like a dream, or nightmare, I should say.

And there I stood, in Utah, with the make-shift altar, a table, candles and about one hundred people who were huddled into groups to pray in their language and according to the Tradition in which they grew up.  And it hit me. I had an answer, which was the answer for the Armenian People.

Armenians have faced the same issues of exile that the Angelinos faced at the fires. Armenians were exiled from their homes and villages, when temperatures got very hot, when wars and massacres left their communities in shambles. Not once or twice, but with regularity, sometimes several times within a century, and often enough that the population of the nation has not increased. The one thing that they’ve taken with them has been their Faith, and the expression of their Faith, the Holy Armenian Church.

I’m in the Mormon Capital of the World, with a group of people who weren’t supposed to have been here – that’s right in 1915, one of the perpetrators of the Armenian Genocide promised that there would be only one Armenian left and that Armenian would be on-display in a museum.  And here we are, eleven time zones away from where we originated – in Armenia – singing, praying and communing with God in our native Armenian language proclaiming that Christ is with us!

Everything else is temporary. Houses, cars, portfolios, will all come and go, they can be replaced. But the Faith that’s inside of us – the soul and spirit of our being – is irreplaceable. And it is the one thing that lasts beyond fires, plagues, wars, and even the worst manifestation of evil, genocide.

The night I left my home, I wasn’t certain if I would have a house to come back to, but I was sure that I had a home. That’s what Armenians have taken with them: their home, the Armenian Church.

We’ll continue on this thread tomorrow, for today, we end with this prayer from the Divine Liturgy,

This dwelling of holiness, this place of praise; in this habitation of angels, this place of the expiation of mankind; before these holy signs and the holy place that hold God up to us and are made magnificent, we bow down in awe and worship. We bless and glorify your holy, wondrous and triumphant lordship and, together with the heavenly hosts, we offer blessing and glory to you with the Father and the Holy Spirit, now and always and unto the ages of ages. Amen.