186 Tigran Simyan and Ilze Kačāne programs on religious themes with information about secular and church holidays. Since 1996, when a normal power supply was restored, television (Shoghakat and other channels) became the basic means of mass information in Armenia, and the shift towards religion became even greater. An analysis of addresses delivered on New Year’s Eve in contemporary Armenia reveals a synthesis of the Christian and the secular. Since 1992, a few minutes before midnight, the Catholicos of All Armenians and the President of the Republic of Armenia address the nation. Since 2016, the Catholicos of All Armenians has been performing a unique Christian tradition—the ritual of “Blessing the Pomegranates.” The pomegranate, being one the most widely recognized symbols of Armenia, is of great importance in New Year rituals, standing not only for good fortune in general, but also for God’s grace, for the blood that Jesus Christ shed for people, and for a new cycle of life. Fig. 2. Blessing Pomegranates at midnight on New Year’s Eve in St. Echmiadzin, Armenia, 2017 (a screenshot from a video by Armenian Church 2018) According to the Catholicos of All Armenians as well as other high-ranking clergy, the gist of the New Year is the sacral “beginning”—Christmas— so that the people would enter the new temporal “beginning” under the sign of “a spiritual renewal and vow” (Shahen Arhimandrit 2013: 3–4), a spiritual “transformation, abandonment of mistakes and flaws in the past” (Garegin II 2017: 10), under the sign of “a wonderful spiritual travel” (Mesrop Arhimandrit 2015: 16), and under “a reviving Christmas light” (Shahen Arhimandrit
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