Important Features within The Church

In the Armenian Church there are many features that are vital to the church's tradition. All of the following features are unique to the Armenian Church.

St Mary's Picture

According to tradition when St. Thaddeus and St. Bartholomew were preaching in Armenia, St. Thaddeus brought a picture of St. Mary. As St. Thaddeus and St. Bartholomew were founders of Christianity in Armenia, every Armenian Church in the world has a picture of St. Mary on the altar to remind themselves of St. Thaddeus and St. Bartholomew, the disciples that brought Christianity to Armenia.

A High Altar

In the Armenian Church, the altar is always higher than the rest of the congregation to represent Mount Sinai, where Moses received the Ten Commandments and taught it to the people (Exodus 19:20-25), therefore, the altar represents that we are getting closer to God. The altar is so sacred that the priests has to take his shoes off.

Curtains

As Jesus dies on the cross, "The Curtains hanging in he Temple was torn in two, from top to bottom." (Mark 15:38), therefore, the curtain was a barrier between God and his people but when it tore in two, the barrier was removed and God spread around the world. \Thus, when the curtains are open, this shows that God and the people have been reconciled and also that peace, love and friendship with God is fully restored.

The Baptism Basin

Once God had created Adam he decided to make another person -Eve- by taking out one of Adam's ribs. The Christening basin is placed on the side of the Church in order to show that a new person is introduced into God's Kingdom on the side of the church/altar.

Incense

Incense is constantly burned throughout the mass and as it burns, the smoke goes up to God. The smoke is use to represent the hope in peoples' prayers and psalms as they travel up to God in the way that the smoke of the incense does.

The Clergy's Vestments

The clergy's vestments are made with expensive material and look like the clothes that a King would wear. This symbolizes that Jesus was the King of Kings therefore the clothes show royalty.

The Archbishop's Hat

The Archbishop's hat is made similar to a fish's head. Greek's use the symbol of a fish to remind them hope Jesus fed the 5,000 with the five loaves and two fishes. The letters used within the fish means 'Christ'.

The Outside of the Church

From the outside, the Church does not have the traditional features of Armenian architecture. Traditional Armenian Churches forms a cross shape, which have a square that supports an octagon or a decagon that in turn, forms a dome that has a cross in the centre. However, the Armenian community did not want to make their territory too obvious around the English architecture surrounding the area, thus they made the outside of the church look like an Anglican church, but the inside follows traditional Armenian architecture.