Archbishop Anoushavan's New Year & Christmas Message 2020

​Dear compatriots,
 
I praise the Almighty, who made it possible for the whole of mankind and the Armenian people to welcome the year 2020. In general, years and feasts seem a calendar repetition. Yet for us, rational beings, they are a wonderful opportunity for both a renewal and a reassessment of life with a different understanding.

With this understanding, I want to contemplate the year 2020 through the lens of the three magi who are headed to Bethlehem: the three magi, who represent their contemporary society’s religious and royal class as well as that of those who studied the movements of celestial bodies. In other words, our days’ astronomers and scientists are a wonderful example of hope for mankind, with their consistent and conscious labor of research.

It was no coincidence that the star headed to the manger was revealed to the three magi. They were conducting long studies, which were crowned with their gift of the celestial mystery. And once they revealed that heavenly gift, they dutifully set out for a long and treacherous journey, full of hope, which was finally rewarded—oh, miracle!—with the message of the highest reverence, kneeling before the manger and presenting their loving gifts to the king of kings, the lord of lords, the infant Jesus Christ.

This is what serious and thoughtful research and examination means, dear compatriots, with persistence and unshakable hope in mankind. And I believe that, under this light, 2019 was indeed a promising year. 

Following long decades of joint work by all our community organizations—ecclesiastical, lay, political—what a great news it was that the House of Representatives and the Senate of the United States unanimously accepted and recognized the Armenian Genocide as an unobjectionable and indisputable truth. 

Who believed that a few years after the Genocide the first Armenian republic would be founded? Who believed that the Soviet order would collapse and that our current republic would be established? This is, dear compatriots, what living with engagement and hope means. 

I want the year 2020 to be flooded with this truth, because we, as we remind you in our diary, this year we will observe the centenary of the Treaty of Sèvres, steeped in the spirit of the second centenary of the birth of Khrimian Hayrig. Yes, we must never surrender before the difficulties of daily life. On the contrary, as I said, with our gaze fixed on the celestial star headed to Bethlehem, that is, with persistence and hope and diligent collective work, we will surely fulfill our dreams.

With this belief, this hope and this love, as Paul the Apostle says, when you put your hands to the plough, always look forward. We too, along with the three magi, let us head towards the realization of our first call to Jesus Christ and let us say to each other on Jan. 6, “Christ is born and revealed!”. And with that spirit of renewal in the year 2020, let us be able as Armenians, as Christian Armenians, renovate ourselves in our pilgrimage from life to the eternal life.  

One more time, I wish you all a Happy New Year and Merry Christmas. Christ is born and revealed! Blessed is the revelation of Christ!

Archbishop Anoushvan
Prelate of the Eastern Prelacy of the United States
​New Year & Christmas 2020