It’s Tuesday and I’m still recovering from the weekend. It’s not what you think – it wasn’t a typical college kid’s weekend of partying. I was protesting. Late Saturday night, I drove home to CT and woke up early the following morning to go into New York City, to the gold-domed St. Vartan Cathedral, headquarters of the Eastern Diocese of the Armenian Church. Following Divine Liturgy, I boarded a bus taking people to Times Square to a protest. What were we protesting? April 24, 1915 – it is a day immortalized in Armenian history. On this day, several hundred leading Armenian intellectuals were gathered in the former Ottoman capital of Constantinople, and massacred.

Thus, every April 24th is the international day of remembrance of the 1915 Armenian Genocide, an event which is still unrecognized by the United States, and of course, the perpetrators, the Ottoman Turks. Sunday was not April 24th, but it was the closest Sunday to this date, so the protest was organized for this day. I joined other Armenians, who congregated at this literal cross-road of the world, Times Square. It was a protest, and it did fulfill expectations, but was it any different than what Armenians have accomplished in the past 92 years since the Genocide?

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I was racing up the stairs to the second floor of our library this morning to make copies of some forms I needed to deliver when a painting of the crucifix caught my eye. It was an elaborate and colorful painting, and I wanted to pause and take a closer look at it, but I was aware the clock was ticking and my legs kept moving underneath me, taking me farther from it. I made a mental note to come back and take a look when I have more time. But then I thought, when will that be?

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Easter has come and passed. Now what?

Well, for us Armenian Orthodox Christians, the Monday after any major feast day – Easter, being the most significant of them all – is a kind of ‘Day of the Dead’ as celebrated in some Latin American cultures, though without the painted skulls and all-night camping out, etc. The term we use for it is “Merelotz.”

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My heart is full; it is Holy Week, and alas I have felt the heaviness of this sacred time for us Christians. Perhaps, of all the nights of the year, tonight is when I am most certain of God and of eternal life. I have just returned from Maundy Thursday services, and in the Armenian Orthodox Church, these services constitute such a beautiful flow of prayers, hymns, and acts, that it is impossible for one not to be moved.

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Spring Break: The pinnacle week of every college student’s academic year. It’s what is most looked forward to next to the end of finals and the beginning of the careless, free summer months of beaches and outdoor concerts, traveling and unwinding at home.

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Holy Cross is a Catholic institution. Even more specifically, it is a Jesuit institution. While we’re not teeming with “Catholic this, or Catholic that,” there are distinct reminders of the school’s religious identity that we students receive, and they show up in our email inboxes.

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Allow me to introduce myself. While I have curly black hair, like to sing, and have a name that looks almost like Annie (it’s Ani), my life has quite little in common with the freckled, redhead, “Little Orphan Annie.” For one thing, I am Armenian, and this makes all the difference - ask those who know me, and without a doubt you’ll find out how true this is!

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