St. Peters Armenian Church, Watervliet, NY

I was so happy to attend Easter at St.Peters church in Watervliet, NY with my family and Sevan from RPI (thanks Sevan!) - soon i'll add some of the pix I took & one video during liturgy - (as it's the situation with most of our current churches, it's in financial need... got to think of a way to have sustainable non-tr...aditional way to meet the needs of our spiritual and cultural institutions!) got any outside the box ideas?

http://www.stpeterarmenianchurch.com

Today I was chatting a bit with M. about her Easter. She is Ethiopian and mentioned that they are thinking of having an Ethiopian church, but it's out of their reach financially. They use the Riverside church on the westide (Manhattan) for their spiritual needs ...

We as Armenians have to be very proud of the vision and foresight of our grandparents for having these churches for us. Sometimes we take for granted that we have Armenian churches, but we need to take them more seriously and help out as much as we can and continue the tradition.

When on Sunday we picked up Paul at 10am from RPI to attend Armenian Easter Liturgy at St.Peters, we were a bit apprehensive that we might get lost.

As we had never been to St.Peters church, which is next to Troy, NY on the map by Albany. I had printed ahead of our trip the directions from google map. As soon as we passed the bridge, I spotted in the horizon the kempet of the Armenian church!! We were so thrilled to see in between the bare trees this magnificent view. We didn't have any time to stop, so I took a quick snapshot - as you could see, it's so strategically located, high up on the hill, surrounded with trees (so glad the trees hadn't sprouted yet, otherwise we might not have seen it!) - My husband was wandering how we would be able to get up there... and after few red lights and Sevan's instructions, we were so glad to see a clear sign at the entrance. We were able to make the quick left turn. It was sharp uphill!

And we came upon this very large space and parking lot!! What a luxury for those of us coming from the city :) Reminded me of the Sourp Krikor church in White Plains - (regarding space and land)

Segment of the Easter 2010 badarak
Here is some more pix I took, after Easter badarak (I'll update this page soon - having tech problems)