Monday, February 19, 2007

The Feast Day of Saint Mesrop

That's what's worth remembering about 19 February (unless it happens to be your birthday or wedding anniversary, of course). Mesrop was a 4th Century Bishop who became missionary and, to his lasting credit and our bafflement, invented an alphabet so that the holy scriptures could be written in Armenian. Look at it and wonder. I really admire an alphabet that has a symbol for "yech", a sound mostly provoked when you take the top off a bad egg.
Mesrop also, with St Isaac the Great (I know nothing about old Ike), established the Armenian liturgy, based on the early Christian practices of Caeserea in Cappadoccia (Central Anatolia).
And you thought 19 February was just a day like any other (unless it happens to be your birthday or wedding anniversary, of course).

No comments: