Armenian Apostolic Church celebrates Easter

Today on March 27th the Armenian Apostolic Church (AAC) celebrates the feast of Easter (Holy Resurrection). Easter is the feast of purification, alienation, abandonment of sins and return to God. Both in the Old and the New Testament Easter is one of the major holidays. The resurrection of Christ became a foundation of the Christian faith.

At Easter people paint eggs. Eggs are considered symbols of the resurrection, the beginning of a new life. The red color symbolizes the life-giving blood of crucified Jesus Christ. "Only at Easter we paint eggs, because an egg symbolizes the universe: the shell is like the sky, the membrane is the air, the glair is water, and the yolk is the earth itself. The red color means that the world was saved at the cost of the blood of Christ, When we take a red egg in our hands, we proclaim our salvation,’’ St. Grigor Tatavetsi writes.

The churches serve the Holy Liturgy of Easter Eve, and the Easter celebrations begin. On Sunday morning the worship of the Easter vigil takes place, the rite of consecration of the four cardinal points (Andastan), then Holy Liturgy is served. Greeting each other, Christians say to each other: "Christ is risen from the dead!" "Blessed is the Resurrection of Christ," News.am wrote.

The Resurrection of Christ is also celebrated today by Catholics and Protestants. On Saturday on March 26th the head of the Catholic Archdiocese of the Mother of God in Moscow, Archbishop Paolo Pezzi, started a church service at the Moscow Catholic Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin Mary, and today he will lead the Easter procession around the temple and a mass. The mass in the Cathedral will be performed in six languages - Russian, French, English, Spanish, Polish and Latin.

On the eve of Easter, Catholics, like  Orthodox believers, observe a strict fast, bring Easter food to the temples for  consecration. On this holiday believers remember Christ's victory over sin and death – a victory which liberated mankind from the slavery of the devil and opened for each person the way of salvation. The Easter celebration gathered the essence of the Christian doctrine of salvation: God became a man so that man might become God.