Celebrating the most ancient Christmas Day

4/1/2011

NIKKI GAMM
ISTANBUL – Hürriyet Daily News

Christmas is just around the corner – this time Armenian Christmas, which is held on Jan. 6, a tradition established to commemorate both the birth and baptism of Jesus Christ.

The reason Jan. 6 was chosen as the date to commemorate the life of Jesus apparently stemmed from the ancient notion that prophets always died on the same day as their conception and Christ was thought to have died on April 6.

Jan. 6 was the day eastern Christian churches commemorated Christmas until the middle of the fifth century, when they adopted the date of Dec. 25 in order to suppress the older Roman Saturnalia festival. One exception to this adoption was the Armenian Church.

“I congratulate the entire Christian world on the New Year and I hope for peace for the whole world,” Turkey’s Deputy Armenian Patriarch Archbishop Aram Atesyan told the Hurriyet Daily News & Economic Review.

Epiphany, a name for the holiday on Jan. 6, represents two different aspects of Christianity. In Orthodox churches it is the baptism of Christ, but in the West it commemorates the visit of the three wise men who are supposed to have brought gold, frankincense and myrrh to Jesus when he was a baby in Bethlehem.

Armenian Christmas in Turkey

Among Turkey’s Armenian community, Christmas is referred to as “Surp Dzinunt” (Holy Birth) and follows 50 days of preparation called “Hisnag.” Church members are expected to fast during the first, fourth and seventh weeks of these 50 days.

Because Christmas is one of the Church’s most religious holidays it is customary to light a purple candle every Saturday at sunset and offer prayers and sing hymns. At home, everything is cleaned from top to bottom, and in the past a priest would come and bless it afterwards.

At Christmas Day Mass, worshipers are given holy water to drink, which is believed to contain some of the oil used to baptize Christ. According to the Church’s history, Armenian patriarchs at the time the church began managed to obtain some of the oil used during Christ’s baptism, which is these days diluted with oils from 40 or so plants, bottled and distributed to Armenian churches worldwide.

In keeping with the atmosphere of the holiday, the day after Christmas is spent praying at the graves of relatives.

Some Armenian Christmas traditions were practiced as far back as the fifth century, with food in particular playing a significant role – from special breads, cookies and other desserts that top off roasted lamb.

Robert Haddeler, editor-in-chief of the Armenian newspaper Marmara and author of several books, has different feelings about Christmas every year, although he and his family do not prepare anything in particular for the commemorations. “With every passing year… Christmas has great value for us both as a community and as a family. Whatever age one is, we feel it more as each New Year passes and we’re happy that we have lived one more year with those whom we love. And we start to think of this coming year and what it holds for us,” He told the Hurriyet Daily News & Economic Review.

“In my opinion it is very important for us as a community to celebrate this Christmas with very powerful emotions and this year we are experiencing some pain. Our Patriarch is ill, and his illness has created quite a few problems for us. We are going through the difficulties of electing a new patriarch. In spite of all these difficulties our community continues to survive. In comparison with the old days, conditions are better. Quite a few of the rights that were taken away previously are now being given back,” he said.

Serbian Orthodox Christmas

When Christmas in the Serbian Orthodox Church is currently celebrated on Jan. 7, the head of the family cuts a young oak that is then blessed by the priest.

The tree is then stripped of its branches and burned in the fireplace with wheat and other grain products as part of prayers for plentiful harvests the following year, happiness, love, luck and riches. These days, urban Serbs receive a small parcel of oak, wheat and other branches tied together after church services which they then take home and burn.

As with the Armenian Church, an important aspect of Christmas Day for the Serbian Orthodox Church is that families eat their main meals together. Tradition calls for roast piglet and a special bread containing a coin. When the bread is broken, whoever finds the coin is supposed to bring that person a good year. Gift giving is associated with St. Nicholas’ Day and New Year’s Day, which is Jan. 14 on the Gregorian calendar.

In addition there are the Hemsin who were originally Armenians who fled to the Pontus region along the eastern Black Sea as Arab troops occupied their homeland in 790. In 1480 the Ottomans conquered the area and in 1600 instituted the devsirme in which suitable young boys were taken from Christian families to be educated and often converted to Islam to get rid of the devsirme and other taxes that were applied to them. Some of the Hemsin now live in Armenia where they have settled and have even opened a newspaper called Hemsin Hay (Hemsin Armenians). They celebrate Christmas on Jan. 6.

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