I always tell my friends let’s celebrate each other’s birthdays, children’s weddings, grand children’s baptisms, let’s just meet, it not necessary at a gorgeous table. If we do not do that, we will meet from dirge to dirge, from funeral to funeral, because we have to go such places, but at happy incidents, it seems that we do not have to meet. And as my age and my peers’ age is not “so” young, it is clear that bad incidents are more than that of the happy ones. It is important that the first ones do not shadow the second ones.
But it seems to me that in our society the culture of mourning is more developed than that of celebrating a holiday. Perhaps that’s why there are less real, “sincere” holidays within us. The state holidays are not very respected; for instance I like September 21, but the majority do not share my warm feelings towards that day – “what in this country…”, “what this poor people…”, “what these authorities…” with a usual rhymes of facts. “Importing” any state holiday and abolishing an old one is very difficult; in Russia, for example, they celebrate the day of people’s unity on November 4 on the occasion of gaining a victory over the Polish in 1612. But they still fail to replace the traditional November 7 with that one. In the same way it was not possible to abolish March 8, not because our citizens respect Clara Zetkin a lot, but because they need to glorify women and have the decades of its tradition.
Our church, as other Christian churches, was clever to give Christian content to the pagan holidays. Yes, people love Trndez and Vardavar in Armenia, I do not know how well they perceive its Christian meaning. And so, plus the New Year, which turns into a gastronomic feast. Thus, the holidays are less on the contrary to, let’s say, Catholics who almost every Sunday sincerely celebrate a holiday.
Our church condemns the ones who celebrate “Halloween” considering that holiday a satanic, devilish phenomenon. Yes, to tell the truth I do not like “black joke” either. But we should understand why a part of our youth is enticed by that game. Perhaps, there is something in that which our society lacks; probably, there are elements in that game that make their lives more miscellaneous. Instead of judging very strictly, we should think about the alternative. Otherwise, only memorial day will remain from our “national” ritual.
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ARAM ABRAHAMYAN
