About the Calendar

The Church Calendar endows time with a rhythm and significance as the Christian makes the spiritual journey through life. The Calendar annually commemorates the key events in the Life of Christ and the history of the Church. At appropriate times during the year, it also draws our attention to examples of our faith and beliefs in the Lives of the Saints and New and Old Testament lessons. Through these observances, the Calendar gives us the opportunity to pause, as a community, to focus on the accumulated wisdom of the ages through lessons and examples of particular Feasts and Saints Days. By making the Calendar a rule of instruction for their lives, Christians find new meaning and deeper understanding of God's message, the church and our faith.

The Church Calendar consists of Feast Days, Saints Days and Fasting Days, which are grouped into larger Seasons or tides, e.g., Eastertide. The Sunday of each week is the Day of the Lord (Kiraki, cf. Greek - Kyrie eleison - Lord, have mercy), at which we celebrate Holy Communion and the Resurrection.

Some feast days are fixed on a particular day, such as, Christmas, which is always on January 6, and some are moveable, such as Easter, which depends upon the lunar calendar. Saints days in the Armenian Church are celebrated on Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays. Wednesdays and Fridays are days of abstinence and fasting.