Mehr News Agency (MNA), Iran
January 2, 2018 Tuesday


Armenians wish prosperous New Year for fellow-Iranians


TEHRAN, Jan. 02 (MNA) – The following is the report recounting my
visit to a church in Tehran where Iranian Armenians observed the rites
of the Eve of the New Year.

Late on Sunday (on the Eve of the New Year of 2018) I went to
Vahidiyeh district in eastern Tehran where a community of Armenian
Iranians live in a somehow big neighborhood.

I was accompanied by Mehr News photographer Majid Hamed Haghdoust and
political desk contributor Mohammad Mahdi Maleki.

The main church of the area was Surp Targmanchats Church opened in
1968. After the 1962 earthquake ravaged the area, the International
Council of Churches funded the Armenians of the neighborhood to buy a
big area of land and rebuild their community. A land of 6000 square
meters was specified to erecting the new venue.

Before the opening of Surp Targmanchats Church in 1968, the Armenians
of the district used to go to the Church of Holy Mary to do their
religious chores, but the Church of Holy Mary was at a distance of 15
kilometers from where they lived. In 1945, the number of Armenians
residing in the area was around 20,000.

It was a sweet night full of wishes for a good New Year and people who
were making resolutions for the new era ahead of them.

In addition to my fellow Iranians of the religion of Christianity,
there were Muslims who were attending the event to show homage to
their compatriots. There were also some other non-Armenian
participants who were interested in how the ceremony was held and the
kind of music played.

The walls were decorated by religious painting hung, most of them
about the life of Prophet Jesus Christ. Upstais was a balcont where
three female vocalist performed choral music accompanying the rite.

The Holy Communion rite kicked off with the ringing of the bells.
Everybody looked happy and smiling.

Some were pondering deep to think about their New Year’s resolutions,
maybe praying for their dear ones.

Ghazal was a teenage Muslim girl who was attending the event along
with her mother and sister. They came early and left around 02:00 a.m.
after the event was over. She said that she wished good things happen
to all people, regardless of their religions, whether Muslims or
Christians, in the New Year.

Vana Gharibian was a young ethnomusicology student at Iranian State
University of Art at the level of master’s degree. She told me that in
2017 she found the real value of life and wished health for those who
are bed bound.

Another person in the community, was a middle-aged gold-smith who had
lost his sister just some days before, but he was attending the event
to respect his fellows in the church. He wished peace for all people
of the world saying that it is no use to have peace in somewhere and
war in somewhere else because all the world is interconnected and
anything unpleasant sat anywhere can sooner or later affect the other
parts of the world.

There were a young Armenian couple who told me that the best thing
they heard in 2017 was the news that they were going to have a baby.
The pregnant lady said that she is expecting for the best event of her
life, the birth of her expected baby, to happen in 2018.

Another middle aged man told me that he was happy that he met his
sister’s children, returning from abroad, in 2017. He described it as
the best event of his last year.