{"id":31834,"date":"2015-01-02T23:27:07","date_gmt":"2015-01-03T03:27:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/?p=31834"},"modified":"2015-01-02T23:27:59","modified_gmt":"2015-01-03T03:27:59","slug":"blessing-of-pomegranates-by-the-armenian","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/index.php\/2015\/01\/blessing-of-pomegranates-by-the-armenian\/","title":{"rendered":"Blessing of pomegranates by the Armenian Catholicos Karekin II"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/01\/Karekin-blessing-pompegranates-2015.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft wp-image-31835 size-medium\" src=\"https:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/01\/Karekin-blessing-pompegranates-2015-300x199.jpg\" alt=\"Karekin blessing pompegranates 2015\" width=\"300\" height=\"199\" srcset=\"https:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/01\/Karekin-blessing-pompegranates-2015-300x199.jpg 300w, https:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/01\/Karekin-blessing-pompegranates-2015-1024x682.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/01\/Karekin-blessing-pompegranates-2015.jpg 2048w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a>Here is a unique Christian tradition with the 2015 Blessing of pomegranates by His Holiness, \u00a0Karekin II, Catholicos of All Armenians in the Mother See of Holy Etchmiadzin. It is a tradition on New Year&#8217;s Eve (or day).<\/p>\n<p>The custom of blessing fruits was known among the Israelites; the Jewish custom originated in that\u00a0the first harvest was offered to the temple: harvest gifts included wheat, barley, grapes, figs, pomegranates, olives and honey.<\/p>\n<p>Pomegranates are considered by many faith traditions to be the fruit of the tree of knowledge and they are also a symbol of plenty and life.<\/p>\n<p>In the Christian Church, the pomegranate symbolically represents the Church. &#8220;The seeds of the pomegranate, though separated by thin membranes yet hold tight together, same way Christian Church holds all Christians around the world together in Christ&#8217;s love; though separate but not divided. Pomegranate shows unity in diversity.\u00a0The crown of Pomegranate represents Jesus&#8217; crown and His sovereignty over the world. The red color symbolizes His Salvific Blood that was shed for All. It also contains 365 seeds as the number of days in a year symbolizing new life in Christ the new year.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Armenia accepted Christianity as its official religion in AD 301.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Here is a unique Christian tradition with the 2015 Blessing of pomegranates by His Holiness, \u00a0Karekin II, Catholicos of All Armenians in the Mother See of Holy Etchmiadzin. It is a tradition on New Year&#8217;s Eve (or day). The custom of blessing fruits was known among the Israelites; the Jewish custom originated in that\u00a0the first &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/index.php\/2015\/01\/blessing-of-pomegranates-by-the-armenian\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Blessing of pomegranates by the Armenian Catholicos Karekin II<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[32001,1712],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31834"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31834"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31834\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":31837,"href":"https:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31834\/revisions\/31837"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31834"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31834"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31834"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}