On July 23, the Armenian Church will mark the day of Christ’s Transfiguration – Vardavar, which is one of the five cardinal feasts of the Armenian Apostolic Church the history of which comes from pagan times. In the Armenian Church, the Feast of the Transfiguration of Our Lord Jesus Christ is celebrated 98 days following Easter.
The fest is traditionally associated with water, love, beauty, fertility and Astghik – the goddess of beauty. On the day people offered her roses, flew doves into the sky and sprinkled water on each other. The tradition of pouring water has been preserved till our days.
Early in the morning everybody – both adults and children – familiar or unfamiliar people come out to the yard and spray each other with great amount of water. Thus, they remember the tradition of presenting roses and spraying water by Goddess Astghik. This holiday is not only a perfect way of being refreshed on a hot summer day but also it changes into a real holiday of water and entertainment when all around you can see many children in wet cloths but in good mood and happy. Besides, water of Vardavar considers to be healing, and everybody should get at least several drops of water during spraying each other.
The Monday following the Feast is a Memorial Day.