The Women’s Guild of Saints Vartanantz Armenian Church in Chelmsford, Mass. will observe its 100th anniversary on Sun., Oct. 17, with a gala banquet and program. The centennial celebration will be preceded by ordination of acolytes during the Divine Liturgy by His Eminence Archbishop Khajag Barsamian, primate of the Diocese of the Armenian Church of America (Eastern).
In 1910, a group of pious Armenian women, having just settled in the Greater Lowell area, identified the urgent need to create a sense of community that would help the growing number of immigrants to maintain their Armenian Christian heritage. Despite their limited resources, these women formed an organization called the Ladies Aid Society, whose primary purpose was to form a parish and build a new church to meet the spiritual, social, educational, and cultural needs of the emerging Greater Lowell Armenian community. Their initial mission was fulfilled with the consecration of the original Saints Vartanantz Armenian Church in Lowell, Mass., in April 1916.
According to Rev. Fr. Khachatur Kesablyan and Organizing Committee co-chairs Milka Jeknavorian and Patricia Kayajanian, the centennial celebration will honor the founders of the Ladies Aid Society, later to be re-named the Women’s Guild, for their model of devotion and dedication that has inspired generations of women. Their invaluable service has been a vital contribution to the sustainable growth of the Sts. Vartanantz parish, which moved to Chelmsford in the 1970’s. The program will include a musical tribute and a narrated slide presentation on the history of the Ladies Aid Society.
For more information, call Milka Jeknavorian at (978) 251-4845 or Patrician Kayajanian at (978) 937-9379.
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