The Armenian Patriarchate of Jerusalem

So yesterday I went to the Armenian church.  It was gorgeous.  Definitely one of the most beautiful churches I have been to.  Lots of very baroque paintings, and multicolored hanging lights.  They only open it up for visitors for 2 hours a day, for their little worship services.  It was interesting hearing them chant and sing in Armenian.  It seems so different for me, and the language sounded like nothing I had ever heard before, so at first I kind of just observed an an outsider watching some sort of cultural ritual, which in fact I was.  Then I tried to go deeper, to understand the way they worship God, and how doing these what sounded like Gregorian chants made them want to be better people.  And yet I still struggled to until I remembered the verse that says that Christ is always by our side and I had the thought "If Jesus were here standing beside me, how would I feel about these people, and their worship of Him?"  This is when I realized that Christ would love them, and I think that he would accept their sacrifice of their incense and chanting and singing.  He would love them for trying to spread the light He has given them with the rest of the world, even if the light is not the whole truth.  I think this realization will make my experience here much more rewarding.  I love watching people worship, and grow closer to the Lord because really, that is what everyone is looking for---the peace and comfort that comes from doing things that bring our hearts closer to Christ.  So really, even if I worship very very differently from them, and we don't speak the same language, have very different cultures, and are from countries across the world from each other, we really are the same.  We are both searching for the light and truth that brings us happiness and truth in this life and the life to come.


Anyway, pictures from the Armenia church . . .

There was no flash photography so the pictures are kind of dark but this place was huge and super elaborate.  It reminded me of the gilded age mansions in Newport, RI I went to a couple years ago.

So this church's patron state is James, and apparently James was beheaded.  Thus the statue.  The woman is holding a bodiless head if you can't see.  Some of the statues and paintings here are pretty crazy.

More chapel pictures.  There are so many bright colors!