On Sunday, October 15, 2023, H.G. Bishop Torkom Donoyan, Prelate of the Western Prelacy, paid a visit to the Orange County community to celebrate the Feast of Holy Translators. H.G. Bishop Donoyan conducted a Divine Liturgy at Forty Martyrs Armenian Church. Fr. Karekin Bedourian, Pastor of Forty Martyrs Armenian Church, deacons, and acolytes assisted at the Altar.
This was the first Sunday, following the completion of a month-long renovation project at Forty Martyrs Armenian Church, where a Divine Liturgy was held, filling the entire parish with joy and excitement.
The community experienced a day of excitement, with the presence of H.G. Bishop Torkom Donoyan. The Divine Liturgy was attended by various government, State, and local officials and representatives, delegates, students, teachers, and the Principal of Ari Guiragos Minassian Armenian School, who gathered together with the large crowd of parishioners and contributed to the sermon delivered by the H.G. Bishop Donoyan.
The Prelate emphasized during his sermon that it was through divine intervention that St. Mesrob Mashdots achieved the extraordinary feat of inventing the Armenian alphabet, with the assistance of King Vramshabouh of Armenia and Catholicos Sahag Bartev. At the time, the primary objective of the political and spiritual leaders was to ensure that the word of God, the Holy Bible, could be effectively communicated to the Armenian people in their native language. They entrusted this task to a priest named Mashdots, who, with divine guidance, miraculously created the Armenian alphabet, which profoundly influenced Armenian education, written language, and culture for centuries to come. This miraculous invention also enabled Armenian children to access the word of God, and the translation of the Bible into Armenian was splendidly accomplished by St. Mashdots and his students, earning it the esteemed title of the “Queen of Translations.”
At the conclusion of the Divine Liturgy, the students of Ari Guiragos Minassian Armenian School presented a program dedicated to the Armenian cultural month. H.G. Bishop Donoyan praised the Ari Guiragos Minassian School community and expressed his hope that they would continue to grow and achieve more success in their collective mission to educate the generations of Christian Armenians.
