LENTEN JOURNEY AT THE CATHEDRAL

On Saturday, February 21, the St. Illuminator’s Cathedral hosted a four-hour retreat entitled Lenten Journey: A Biblical Roadmap for Annual Spiritual Renewal, in keeping with the Year of Spiritual Renewal declared by H. H. Aram I, Catholicos of the Great House of Cilicia. Presented by Archpriest Fr. Mesrob Lakissian, Pastor, and Archdeacon Shant Kazanjian, Director of Christian Education of the Eastern Prelacy, Lenten Journey explored the meaning of Great Lent and how the Armenian Apostolic Church uses the scriptural readings of Great Lent to guide the faithful through a yearly, intensive journey in Christian foundations and spiritual renewal. Twenty people attended the retreat, with four people participating via Zoom.  

After an Arevakal (Sunrise) service, Trustee Liza Yesaian introduced the program, gracefully framing Lent “not as a season of giving things up, but as forty days of intensive care for the soul,” before introducing Fr. Mesrob and Archdeacon Shant with a heartfelt appreciation of their decades of service.

The program consisted of a morning and an afternoon session, with a luncheon table fellowship between them, featuring delicious Lenten foods.

In the morning session, Fr. Mesrob focused on the pastoral aspect of Great Lent in the Armenian tradition, highlighting the importance of prayer, fasting, and charity. In the afternoon session, Archdeacon Shant delved into the mosaic of scriptural readings for Great Lent prescribed in the Armenian Church lectionary, providing necessary context to understand those readings. That context, Archdeacon Shant explained, is the notion of exile and return from exile, which is the essential theme running through the entire biblical narrative from the Old Testament to the New Testament.