“Vardavar” to be celebrated in Armenia tomorrow

The Armenian Church will mark the day of Christ’s Transfiguration – Vardavar on July 8, which is one of the five cardinal feasts of the Armenian Apostolic Church the history of which comes from pagan times, Panorama.am reports. 

The fest is traditionally associated with water, love, beauty, fertility and Astghik – the goddess of beauty. On the day people offered her roses, flew doves into the sky and sprinkled water on each other. The tradition of pouring water has been preserved till our days.

Early in the morning everybody - both adults and children - familiar or unfamiliar people come out to the yard and spray each other with great amount of water. Thus, they remember the tradition of presenting roses and spraying water by Goddess Astghik.