PRAYER REQUESTS One of our most fundamental Christian ՍԻՐԵՑԷՔ ԶՄԻՄԵԱՆՍ ՈՐՊԷՍ ԵԻ ԵՍ ԶՁԵԶ ՍԻՐԵՑԻ responsibilities is to pray. There is truly great power in prayer. During this Divine “LOVE ONE ANOTHER AS I HAVE LOVED YOU” Liturgy and throughout this next week your prayers are requested for: Jean Rivard, Lusine Grigoryan, Toni Golfieri, Tracey Jarvis, Shelley Cotton, Diane Boghosian, Jessica Thresher, Alex Velez, Shirley Yergatian, Anne Tom Keegan, Eleanor Demirjian, Alice Vooris, Susie Arslanian, Lisa Omartian, John Trumbull, Kent Woodard, Susan DerMargosian, Lisa Herrick, Kim Noel, Darlene McKenna, Dr. David Manning, Jr., the Jozokos family, Joan Bazegian, Laura Wormel, Kate Heck, Laura Hynds, Laora Grigoryan, Rebecca Meek, Michael O’Connor, Sara Omartian, Gary Tumasyan, James Anita Assarian, Debbie Manning, Steve Taylor and all those in need of our prayers.

Calendar of Events

February 23, Sunday – Great Barekendan March 1, Sunday – Sunday of Expulsion St. Mark Armenian Church March 1, Sunday - Annual Parish Assembly – noon March 8, Sunday – Sunday of the Prodigal Son 2427 Wilbraham Road March 15, Sunday – Sunday of the Steward Springfield, MA 01129 March 22, Sunday – Sunday of the Judge March 29, Sunday- Sunday of the Advent Church Office: 413-783-5793 April 5, Sunday – Palm Sunday April 12, Sunday – Easter Sunday Der Sevak’s Cell: 914-888-4836 Email: [email protected] LENTEN DINNERS Office Hours: Tuesday-Friday Church Service at 6pm Dinner at 6:30pm Welcome to St. Mark Armenian Church

March 6, (Friday)-Lenten Service- Choir hosting dinner Sunday Bulletin March 13, (Friday)-Lenten Service-Ladies Guild hosting dinner

March 20, (Friday)-Lenten Service-Avak's hosting dinner March 27, (Friday)- Lenten Service- Sunday School hosting dinner February 16, 2020 Dinner: $8 for adults / $4 for children 6 and up Church Services at 10:00am HOME BLESSINGS Sunday School at 10:15am According to the tradition of the Armenian Church, we do Home Blessings at Christmas. The Home Blessing is very important because as you go to the House of Parish Council Greeters: God, likewise Christ’s representative, the priest, comes to your house and blesses it. Der Hayr would like to make a visit and do a Home Blessing during this season and Diana Loyuk and Shelley Cotton ask that you please call and arrange a day and time for him to come. Christ called His followers “the salt of the earth” who through their faith, hope and love made life worth living. The burning incense signifies the Christian who burns it with the love of God Coffee Hour Hosts: and also the prayers of the faithful, which rise up as a sweet odot to Heaven. Please BY ALL THE FAMILIES TODAY WHO ARE REQUESTING REQUIEM call Der Hayr to make arrangements for him to come to your home and just as a TO REMEMBER THEIR LOVED ONES AND ALL WHO LOST THEIR reminder put on a tray: a small dish of salt, a slice of bread, and a glass of water LIVES IN THE WAR IN 1988 Scripture Reading “purified”. The feast also recognizes the long-standing tradition of Jews to symbolically dedicate their first-born son to God by giving a small gift to the temple. Luke 2:22-35 The feast commemorates the confirmation of Jesus’ revelation as God. Combining pre-Christian Armenian traditions with this Christian celebration, the Jesus Presented in the Temple festivities included dancing, making a bonfire, going round it and jumping over the fire. When the time came for the purification rites required This is a joyful holiday widely celebrated in . People make bonfires in their by the Law of Moses, Joseph and Mary took him to yards, make circles and go round the bonfire, and in the end they jump over the flame. Jerusalem to present him to the Lord (as it is written Newlyweds jump over the fire together as a couple, and on this day recently married in the Law of the Lord, “Every firstborn male is to be women usually receive gifts from their mother-in-laws. consecrated to the Lord”), and to offer a sacrifice in The fire symbolizes the light, the warmth, the joy and also protection against evil. It keeping with what is said in the Law of the Lord: “a symbolizes Jesus Christ as the Eternal Light. pair of doves or two young pigeons.” Now there was a man in Jerusalem called Simeon, who was righteous and devout. He was waiting for the consolation of Israel, and the Holy Spirit was on him. It had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he would not die before he had seen the Lord’s Messiah. Moved by the Spirit, he went into the temple courts. When the parents brought in the child Jesus to do for him what the custom of the Law required, Simeon took him in his arms and praised God, saying:

“Sovereign Lord, as you have promised, you may now dismiss your servant in peace. For my eyes have seen your salvation, which you have prepared in the sight of all nations: a light for revelation to the Gentiles, and the glory of your people Israel.”

The child’s father and mother marveled at what was said about him. Then Simeon blessed them and said to Mary, his mother: “This child is destined to cause the falling and rising of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be spoken against, so that the thoughts of many hearts will be revealed. And a sword will pierce your own soul too.”

The Feast of the Presentation of our Lord to the Temple

On February 14 each year, the Armenian Church celebrates Dyarnuntarach, literally “the bringing forward of the Lord.” The Feast of the Presentation of Our Lord to the Temple is always 40 days after Armenian Christmas. Other names for the feast include Derendas (possibly a contraction of Dyarnuntarach) and Candlemas. It represented the idea that 40 days after a woman gave birth, she would go to the temple and offer a pigeon and lamb as offerings of atonement and thus, she would be were widely covered in the Western press. It was greeted with Sumgait general astonishment in Armenia and the rest of the Soviet

Union since ethnic feuds in the country were largely suppressed by the government, which had promoted policies such as internationalism, fraternity of peoples, and socialist patriotism to avert such conflicts. The massacre, together with the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, would present a major challenge to the reforms being implemented by then General Secretary of the , . Gorbachev would later be criticized for his perceived slowness in reacting to the crisis. The pogrom was immediately linked to the Armenian of 1915 in the Armenian national consciousness. The killings are commemorated every year on February 28 in Armenia, Nagorno-Karabakh, and the diaspora.

The Sumgait pogrom was a pogrom that targeted the Armenian population of the seaside town of Sumgait in Soviet in late February 1988. The pogrom took place during the early stages of the . On February 27, 1988, mobs made up largely of ethnic formed into groups and attacked and killed TODAY Hokehankist (Requiem) (Հոգեհանգիստ) is being on the streets and in their apartments; widespread said for the looting and a general lack of concern from police officers beloved souls of all who were killed in the Sumgait, and allowed the situation to continue for three days. On February Kirovabad pogrom in 1988-1990 28, a small contingent of Ministry of Internal Affairs (MVD) troops entered the city and unsuccessfully attempted to quell To our Soldiers, Volunteers and Civilians who died for the rioting. They were followed by more professional military freedom of Artsakh units entered with tanks and armored personnel vehicles one day later. Government forces imposed a state of In loving memory of and curfew and brought the crisis to an end. The official death toll released by the Prosecutor General of the USSR (tallies Yana, Seroge, Klaudia, Galina, Aregnaz, Stefanie, David, were compiled based on lists of named victims) was 32 Eudokia, Simeon, Mikhail, Samuel and Maria people (26 Armenians and 6 Azerbaijanis), although some Requested by the Rudchenko Family have revised this figure up into the tens and hundreds. The civil violence in Sumgait were unprecedented in scope and