Growing up in Yerevan, Armenia, I could see Mount Ararat from the window of our apartment. Every day, it stood there majestic, silent, and seemingly close enough to touch. Yesterday, many years later, I stood with our pilgrims at the foot of Mount Ararat, this time from the other side. I was no longer looking through a window. The mountain that had filled the horizon of my childhood now rose directly before us. Standing there I thought about Noah and his family, about the flo

In front of the altar of the Soorp Asdvadzadzin Cathedral in Ani Today, we visited Ani, once the magnificent capital of the Armenian kingdom. Ani was no small outpost. In 961, King Ashot III made it the capital of the Armenian kingdom, and under the Bagratuni dynasty it grew into something extraordinary. “A city of a thousand and one churches”, they used to say, a crossroads of merchants and monks, scholars and kings. Yet the king who helped make Ani magnificent is remembered

A suitcase can be packed in an afternoon. A soul takes longer to prepare. We fold our clothes, check the weather, gather our documents, and make sure we have everything we need. But a pilgrimage requires another kind of preparation. The heart must grow quiet, the mind attentive, and the soul open to whatever God desires to reveal. As the Psalmist writes, "Blessed are those whose strength is in you, whose hearts are set on pilgrimage" (Psalm 84:5). Today, we begin our diocesan