On Tuesday, March 3rd, Dr. Jesse Arlen and Fr. Samuel Rith-Najarian were in conversation together on the spiritual disciplines of solitude and silence. Drawing on the life and teachings of Jesus and the wisdom of the church fathers and monastic tradition, the talk explored how the intentional pursuit of solitude and silence were fundamental practices of our Lord and his disciples. The talk concluded with practical discussion of how to pursue these spiritual practices in the modern world and what importance, potential, and power they hold for Christians today.
The recording of the talk may be accessed on the Vemkar YouTube channel:
The talk was part 3 in a six-part series offered through Vemkar entitled “Ancient Paths, Living Wisdom: How to Incorporate the Spiritual Disciplines in our Everyday Life.”
Previous talks in the series were given on Feb. 17th by Fr. Hovnan Demirjian on the topic “Fasting from the Things that Consume Us.”
And on Feb. 24th, Fr. Yeprem Kelegian spoke on “Charity and Service.”
In upcoming weeks, Bishop Mesrop Parsamyan will speak on the topic of Meditation (March 10th), Dn. Hovannes Khosdeghian will speak on the practice of “Lectio Divina (Spiritual Reading)” (March 16th), and the series will conclude on March 24th with a talk by Dr. Jesse Arlen on the practice of gratitude.
The Zohrab Center warmly invites you to sign up for “Խորհուրդ Խորին / Mystery Profound,” the second half of a Գրաբար reading course to take place on Mondays 2:00–4:00pm ET from February 2nd to May 25th via Zoom.
The course will be led by Zohrab Center director Dr. Jesse Arlen and will focus on the hymns, chants, and prayers of the Divine Liturgy of the Armenian Church (Ս. Պատարագ), including hymn verses not commonly sung in contemporary practice as well as prayers of the service said silently by the celebrant.
The first part of this course covered the rite of vesting and preparation as well as the Liturgy of the Word, while the second half of the course will focus upon the Eucharistic Liturgy proper.
In order to benefit from the course, participants should be able to comfortably read the Armenian alphabet and have some prior experience with classical or modern Armenian.
In partnership with Dumbarton Oaks and the Zohrab Center, HMML will host an intensive three-week course on Classical Armenian for the intermediate level from July 5-July 25, 2026, at HMML in Collegeville, Minnesota.
This course, to be taught by Dr. Jesse Arlen and Dr. Julia Hintlian, is intended for graduate students or recent PhDs, who can demonstrate a need for Classical Armenian in their research. Priority is given to students who lack opportunities to study Armenian at their own institutions. The program welcomes international applicants but does not sponsor J visas.
Tuition, room, & board are free for admitted students, thanks to support from Dumbarton Oaks.
The contents of the book relate directly to the history of the Diocese of the Armenian Church and the Armenian American community of New York and the East Coast in general, and much of the research for the book was conducted in the Zohrab Center itself, which is warmly acknowledged by Dr. Alexander at the outset of the book.
Table of Contents
List of Figures
List of Maps
AcknowledgmentsIntroduction1. The Contested Homeland: World War I and the Genocide
2. Years of Adjustment: Armenian Americans in the 1920s
3. The Tourian Affair: Contested Memories and an Archbishop’s Murder
4. “To Supply Armenia with Architects”: The Coming-of-Age of the American-Born Generations
5. Fighting on Many Fronts: World War II and Its Aftermath
6. The Armenian Americans’ Cold War
7. A House of God Divided: The Formalization of the Church Split
8. The Power of a Word: Naming and Claiming the Genocide
The contents of the book relate directly to the history of the Diocese of the Armenian Church and the Armenian American community of New York and the East Coast in general, and much of the research for the book was conducted in the Zohrab Center itself, which is warmly acknowledged by Dr. Alexander at the outset of the book.
Table of Contents
List of Figures
List of Maps
Acknowledgments
Introduction
1. The Contested Homeland: World War I and the Genocide
2. Years of Adjustment: Armenian Americans in the 1920s
3. The Tourian Affair: Contested Memories and an Archbishop’s Murder
4. “To Supply Armenia with Architects”: The Coming-of-Age of the American-Born Generations
5. Fighting on Many Fronts: World War II and Its Aftermath
6. The Armenian Americans’ Cold War
7. A House of God Divided: The Formalization of the Church Split
8. The Power of a Word: Naming and Claiming the Genocide
The Zohrab Center warmly invites you to sign up for “Խորհուրդ Խորին / Mystery Profound” a Գրաբար reading course to take place Mondays 2:00–4:00pm ET from September 8th to December 15th via Zoom. Don’t miss this opportunity to understand the Holy Badarak (Divine Liturgy) in its original language.
Registered participants only will receive course materials and access to the recordings of the Zoom sessions. Register for the course at this Zoom registration link.
The course will be led by Zohrab Center director Dr. Jesse Arlen and will focus on the hymns, chants, and prayers of the Divine Liturgy of the Armenian Church (Ս. Պատարագ), including hymn verses not commonly sung in contemporary practice as well as prayers of the Eucharistic service, said silently by the celebrant.
Participants will also have the opportunity to read from manuscript missals (Խորհրդատետր) containing the text of the Divine Liturgy.
In order to benefit from the course, participants should be able to comfortably read the Armenian alphabet and have some prior experience with classical or modern Armenian.
The Zohrab Center warmly invites you to sign up for “Խորհուրդ Խորին / Mystery Profound” a Գրաբար reading course to take place Mondays 2:00–4:00pm ET from September 8th to December 15th via Zoom.
The course will be led by Zohrab Center director Dr. Jesse Arlen and will focus on the hymns, chants, and prayers of the Divine Liturgy of the Armenian Church (Ս. Պատարագ), including hymn verses not commonly sung in contemporary practice as well as prayers of the Eucharistic service, said silently by the celebrant.
Participants will also have the opportunity to read from manuscript missals (Խորհրդատետր) containing the text of the Divine Liturgy.
In order to benefit from the course, participants should be able to comfortably read the Armenian alphabet and have some prior experience with classical or modern Armenian.
The Zohrab Center warmly invites you to an upcoming international conference, Շնորհալի եւ պարագայ իւր “Nerses Shnorhali in His Context,” to be held at St. Nersess Armenian Seminary from May 8–10, 2025.
You may register for the Zoom Webinar via this link.
The conference flyer and program are below. For more information, visit the St. Nersess seminary website.
Following the successful experience of the 12-week Գրաբար medieval Armenian poetry reading course and based on student demand, a ten-week continuation course will be offered April 7 – June 9 on Mondays from 2:00pm–4:00pm ET by Zoom, taught by Zohrab Center director Dr. Jesse Arlen.
In part 1 of the course, in addition to some basic grammar lessons, participants read and translated hymns by two early female hymnographers, Khosrovidukht Goghtnatsi and Sahakdukht Siwnetsi, a poetic meditation on the transience of this world by Anania of Narek, selections from the prayerbook of St. Gregory of Narek, as well as one of the latter’s liturgical odes on the Resurrection.
In the continuation course, participants will read from the poetic works of St. Nerses Shnorhali and other later medieval poets.
There is no course fee, but some basic familiarity with Classical Armenian (or knowledge of Modern Armenian) is recommended for participants.
Please register at this link. Those unable to follow the sessions live may have access to the recordings and course materials by registering at the above Zoom link.
Armenian artist M. Hovanessian painted his subjects, Saints Vartan and Shushanik, with great skill, and in heroic scale: each canvass measures over eight feet in height.
But they were also painted in accordance with age-old Christian traditions governing how to portray saintly subjects, to make them suitable for veneration.
Below, Zohrab Center Director Dr. Jesse Arlen offers reflections on the two icons.
Unlike realist paintings or photographs, holy icons do not attempt to depict events as they happened in a single moment of historical time. Rather, icons invite those who behold them to contemplate the meaning of events from a heavenly, divine perspective.
One encounters little historical detail in the two new icons of St. Vartan and St. Shushanik that adorn the entrance of St. Vartan Cathedral in New York City. Absent from the icon of St. Vartan are scenes of battle and bloodshed, like we find in various medieval manuscript illuminations, or modern paintings depicting St. Vartan and the Battle of Avarayr.
Absent from the icon of St. Shushanik are the gruesome tortures inflicted on the holy woman’s saintly body, which fill the pages of the Armenian and Georgian martyrologies of the saint.
What are we beholding, then, when we gaze at the icons of these two saints? Icons are famously described as “windows into heaven” or “sacred windows.” But what does that mean?
Heaven signifies the meaning of things: it is the invisible realm of reality, and we gain access to that realm through symbols. The icon is a kind of tutor, telling us of the reality behind and beyond what our physical eye can see. Icons reveal the truth—but not historical truth. It is truth of another dimension: invisible, spiritual reality, not perceivable to our physical eyes. Hence, the need for the icon, which gives us a view into heavenly reality.
In earthly, historical time, Vartan Mamikonian died in battle with other Armenian nobles. In the icon, he stands victorious, holding not a spear but a processional cross, standing at the front of what one may imagine to be a long line of heroic saints behind him.
The icon of St. Vartan by artist M. Hovanessian
Sheathed is his sword; removed his helmet. For we see Vartan not as he stood on earth, but as he stands in Heaven—where, the prophet says, “Swords are beaten into plowshares, spears into pruning-hooks; nation shall not take up sword against nation, and no more shall they learn to wage war” (Isaiah 2:4).
The saint stands atop a high place, with more of the heavens visible behind him than the earth below his feet. His cloak and the plume of his helmet are red: the color associated, in memory and symbol, with the blood he shed as a witness to His Lord, in defense of the Christian faith.
Denying himself, Vartan took up the cross he holds high with his right hand, and followed after Christ. In so doing, for the sake of Christ, he lost his life and lost the world—but gained his soul and was rewarded with eternal life (Matthew 16:24–25).
In a similar place stands St. Shushanik, daughter of St. Vartan and descendant of St. Gregory the Illuminator. Around her are white lilies, the flower after which she is named: “I am a lily (shushan) of the valleys” (Song of Songs 2:1). Like the Illuminator before her, in historical time she endured years of physical torture, beatings, and imprisonment—not at the hands of enemies but by the hand and command of her own husband, Vazgen, the apostate margrave of Georgia.
The icon of St. Shushanik by artist M. Hovanessian
Yet in the icon, we behold not a disfigured, broken body, but the immaculate body of a saintly woman. We see Shushanik as she is in heaven, where God has healed her broken heart and bound up all her wounds (Psalm 146/147:3). Lying at her feet are the unbound iron shackles with which she was once fettered in an earthly prison. But God saved her from darkness and the shadow of death, and broke away her chains (Psalm 106/107:14).
In her hand, she holds a sacred book. As we read in the historian Ukhtanes, during her tortures, “she had with her a small book, with which she performed her devotions and psalmody.” Now she stands in heaven, holding in one hand the cross and in her other the sacred Gospel, for which she endured torture, after the pattern of her ancestor St. Gregory and her Lord Jesus Christ.
She stands regally in noble raiment, crowned with the imperishable crown (1 Cor. 9:25). Behind her silent visage, it is as if we can hear her speaking the words of the prophet silently to herself, that she “has been clothed in a garment of salvation and a cloak of joy. Like a bridegroom he put a crown on my head and like a bride he adorned me with jewels” (Isaiah 61:10).
