Every year, I fall in love with this church all over again. Luz church in Chennai was built by the Portuguese in C16. In a city with many fine churches, this isn’t the oldest, the largest, the most elaborate, or the most sacred. But it has charm in abundance, and serenity – and some really interesting gravestones, a few in Armenian script.
A real privilege today to be invited to the annual service at Chennai’s exquisite, eighteenth century Armenian Church on (of course) Armenian Street in George town. Armenians were once one of the main trading communities across Asia. Some of their churches survive – in Kolkata, Dhaka, Yangon and Mumbai and a few otherports and cities – but the community has all but gone.
In and around Chennai, there are perhaps four or five Armenian, or part-Armenian households. The attendance at today’s service – including visitors and well-wishers – was about thirty.
The Armenian Orthodox priest at today’s ceremony came over from Kolkata (Calcutta), where the community is a little bigger. So too did the two altar boys, and four young women, three of whom sang very tenderly throughout the two-hour service; they are students at Kolkata’s historic Armenian College.
One longstanding member of the Chennai congregation came over, with his young son, from Bangalore. An Australian Armenian family visiting Chennai also swelled the congregation.
Most of the tiny number of Armenians in the city are not from long established Indian Armeninan families, but are married to South Indians whom they met in Armenia.
And then there were well-wishers like me – it’s the second time I’ve been able to attend this annual service, which is so very important to the community. The church is in its own grounds.It is small but serene. The most striking visual aspect is the separate belltower, which has a set of six bells all dating from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and two of them cast in London.
Today, the bells chimed to mark the opening of the service. As well as the singing, there was lots of incense. Full members of the church took communion and we were all give the opportunity to kiss the cross and the Bible. The priest delivered his sermon in Armenian and English. After the communion service, there was a short requiem service at the grave of Harutyun Shmavonian. He was a priest who in 1794 published the first ever periodical in the Armenian language. He died in what was then Madras in 1824.
After that there was a chance to chat, to eat very tasty Armenian pastries and of course to take the all important group photograph.
