We spent the day and night of October 2 in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre (Resurrection). You may imagine the exhausted Ashot Bleyan, who is used to going to bed at 10:30 pm, at midnight in the Second Golgotha (Calvary), in the Armenian section of  the Church of Resurrection during the night liturgy and at 4 am in front of the Holy Grave of Jesus during the Holy Liturgy… And it was good that Davit Bleyan fell asleep as usual at his time… As a participant I was destined to see with my own eyes the Armenian Apostolic, Greek Orthodox and Catholic Churches control the Holy Grave of Jesus. While we were preparing for our divine service in isolationin in the Church of Resurrection,the doors opened and hundreds of multilingual Orthodox pilgrims surrounded Christ’s grave. Below is the Orthodox Liturgy; above is the divine service in Armenian. It is already 4 am, and the Catholic divine service began in another wing on the second floor. Meanwhile more and more pilgrims arrive through the doors of the Church of the Holy Sepulcher.

I had a meeting with Sevan Archbishop Gharibyan today. We understood each other.  Reverend Patriarch gave all the rights to the inspector of Jerusalem Theological Seminary Theodoros Archimandrite Zakaryanto conduct the negotiations of our partnership. Archbishop Gharibyan invited our juvenile and  teachers’ choirs to Armenian Jerusalem.

This is how Davit concluded that day: “This is Jerusalem, but it seems to be  Armenia, only the people here speak English.”