13 October, 2015

During 2015, 4 meetings were organized in Armenia to prepare young people for the event of WYD-2016 in Krakow. More than 100 Armenian young people from various Armenian catholic parishes of Armenia and Georgia together with their parish priests took part in these meetings, held by Armenian Catholic Ordinariate in Gyumri.

Seminars, spiritual classes, group works and discussions were conducted during those WYD preparatory meetings in March, May, October 2015 in the buildings of “Aghajanyan” campsite.

Each meeting lasted one or two days with an overnight stay. The young Armenian Catholics participated in the Holy Mass daily, prayed together with their priests. Spiritual classes were organized to inculcate in the young the awareness of the mission and the essence of the WYD event, as well as the importance of their participation in the event as catholic representatives of the Armenian people. The priests were also emphasizing the need of a deeper understanding of own religious and national identity as Armenian Catholics. All the young people, who are to participate in WYD 2016, must be well aware of their identity to represent it fully and in harmony with the catholic young people of other nationalities during the WYD.

Special classes were devoted to the sacraments of Penance and Eucharist, mainly guided by the themes proposed in the programme of Heart 2.0, offered on the krakow2016.com webpage. The speakers also represented to the young the Pope’s Message for WYD 2016 and his bulla «Misericordiae Vultus» promulgated in April 2015 to expose the meaning and essence of the Jubilee year of Mercy proclaimed by the Holy Father. The young people eagerly and actively participated in discussions focused on the understanding of the meaning of Mercy and gospel beatitudes.

A special interest was paid to the official hymn of the WYD 2016. A group of talented young people translated the lyrics of the hymn into Armenian, fitted with the melody and are now preparing a group recording of the hymn in Armenian with a piano accompaniment. It will be presented to the WYD community in the coming months.

His Excellency Raphael Minassian, the archbishop of Armenian Catholics in Armenia, Georgia, Russia and Eastern Europe, also visited the meetings. He told the young to prepare themselves for the event thoroughly in order to join the march of the Universal Church as a part of it.

The next large meetings will be held in Spring 2016 with, probably, a larger number of participants, meanwhile minor preparatory meetings are being held in the communities by the priests.