COSTA MESA : Doing Their Bit for Those in Armenia

Members of St. Mary Armenian Church are waiting to celebrate Christmas until Jan. 6, the day Armenians traditionally celebrate the birth of Christ, but this year the holiday will be a somber one.

The Rev. Moushegh Tashjian, 45, said the congregation will spend the day praying for the Armenian people who still are suffering the effects of an earthquake four years ago that killed 25,000 people and left half a million people homeless.

“Armenia right now is in a very, very difficult situation. There is no food, medicine or fuel going into the country by way of land,” Tashjian said. He explained that the land has been blockaded by surrounding countries, including Turkey and Azerbaijan, that are not allowing shipments of fuel and food in by train or automobile. “We are very, very saddened by this fact.”

However, he said, “we still are trying to celebrate Christmas, hoping God will answer our prayers.”

Prayers will be answered too, Tashjian said, when the enclave of ethnic Armenians living inside Azerbaijan gain religious and personal freedom.

Fighting over that enclave, Nagorno-Karabakh, and the strategic highway leading to it has claimed 3,000 lives in the last four years.

“All they want is to live on their own land peacefully because what is happening in Somalia could happen in Armenia,” Tashjian said.

In a recent letter to President Bush, the president of Armenia, Levon Ter-Petrosyan, declared the Republic of Armenia “a state of national disaster.” He wrote that “the economic collapse of Armenia is attributed to the blockade of Armenia, which has been de facto in force from Azerbaijan/Nakhichevan, Turkey . . . and, lately, Georgia.”

The letter further pleaded with Bush to put pressure on the nations blockading Armenia so as to allow the transportation of fuel and aid into the country.

To Armenians around the world, Tashjian said, this Christmas will not be a joyous one. “Every Armenian, in the corner of his mind, is thinking about his brother and sister in Karabakh.”

St. Mary’s members and 20 other Armenian parishes in California, Nevada, Washington and Arizona are busy packing 500 20-pound boxes filled with food, socks, toiletries and toys and collecting money to send them by air.

“We’re doing all we can,” said Alice Bilezikjian, 72, a member of the church. “It is definitely going to be a sad Christmas. You can’t really enjoy it when you know our countrymen are suffering over there. Some don’t even know where they are going to sleep. It’s really heart-wrenching.”

His church will commemorate both Christ’s birth and his manifestation as God on Jan. 6, Tashjian said. That is what Armenians call Christmas, he said.

“We need to carry on our culture,” Tashjian added.

Bilezikjian agrees. “It’s important to keep alive our traditions so we always remember our people in Armenia and pray for them,” she said.

On the eve of the holiday, parishioners receive Holy Communion. And on Jan. 7, believers visit burial sites of friends and relatives.

“We should never forget our language, our history and our culture for the sake of our compatriots who need our support,” Tashjian said.