Armenian Art of Lettering Brings Children Closer to History of Church

His workshop in Worcester was a joint effort with a committee called HyeLights (I am one of five members). Every two years, HyeLights produces a show with the area’s youth that features music, dance and stories, both historical and contemporary, and this year, the creative arts. The program featured St. Nersess Shnorhali and the larger landscape he inhabited, as well as information on Artsakh (Karabakh) and famous Armenians such as Aram Khachaturian, Raffi Cavoukian and Andrea Martin.

Under the directorship of Linda Bullock, the founder of HyeLights, the group initially planned the workshop and simply wanted to do something different with available resources. However, when it became clear that the expertise of Kochakian dovetailed with the group’s focus, the workshop went ahead.

Much of St. Nersess Shnorhali’s life and work was devoted to the creative arts and musical reforms that simplified the text of religious poetic hymnody, which brought these texts closer to the style of Armenian folk music and therefore more accessible to the masses. He himself was a defender of sacred art as a component to the Christian faith identity. St. Nersess didn’t want just priests and bishops to understand Armenian religious identity; he believed this information should be for all Armenians everywhere.

One of the ways this mission was supported through the letters that Kochakian taught attendees to reproduce were also a tool of learning for everyday Armenians in past centuries: the idea was to embellish and beautify the words of the Bible and capture a reader’s attention in ways plain calligraphy cannot. Even more surprising, all who attended learned the Armenian alphabet was invented in Artsakh in 404 AD.

The day of the workshop, almost 20 youth from ages 9-22 first watched and listened to a PowerPoint presented by Kochakian about the Armenian alphabet and the history of Armenian lettering. Then, after a prayer specifically read to prepare for painting icons and other such images, it was time to work on our own paintings. Each participant was given an outline of the first or last initial of their names, and then had free reign to experiment with colors and add embellishments such as pomegranates, flowers and doves. After each participant finished, Kochakian spent some one-on-one time with each participant, personally demonstrating how to enhance the letters through shading and highlighting with white paint.

At the end of the program, participants brought their Armenian letters to the sanctuary, where he and the location’s host pastor, Very Rev. Ardag Arabian of Holy Trinity Armenian Church in Worcester, led the group in prayer. Being in the sanctuary at a time when Badarak (mass) is not taking place always has an air of reverence to it, and this time was no different. Following the prayers and the singing of one of St. Nersess’s hymns, Norasdeghdzal, by the participants themselves, no one wanted to leave.