CONSECRATION OF ST. MARY’S CHURCH IN KARADURAN
WE SHOULD NOT ONLY GO TO CHURCH, WE SHOULD INCORPORATE THE CHURCH INTO OUR LIVES”- SAID HIS HOLINESS ARAM I
On Sunday 18 October 2009, in the presence of bishops and priests of the brotherhood from Lebanon and Syria, religious representatives, lay leaders and a large number of people from Syria and other countries, His Holiness Aram I consecrated the new Church.
The town of Karaduran has a long history of building churches and then losing contact with them whenever the map of the region has been redrawn. St Mary’s Church was constructed because the old one, which had been built in 1950, was about to crumble. After singing psalms and prayers of thanksgiving, His Holiness Aram I anointed the altar; bishops Shahan and Norayr then annointed the four corners of the church. His Holiness Aram I said: “Wherever our people have gone, they have built a church next to their homes. However, we should not only be churchgoers, but we should incorporate the church into our lives. We are not anointing the stones of the altar and the walls, but we are renewing our covenant with God, with our church Tradition, its spirituality and on the path carved by St. Gregory of Nareg and St. Nerses the Gracious.
After the consecration and liturgy, celebrations continued with a public banquet in the presence of Catholicos Aram I.
