YEREVAN, FEBRUARY 13, ARMENPRESS: In Armenia the Feast of the Presentation of the Lord to the Temple is called Tyarnundarach. It relays the idea of going forward (-undarach) to see the Lord (Tyarn-).

It is also cald Candlemas, a reference to how the devout Simeon, who received Jesus from Mary at the temple that day, referred to Jesus as the "light of revelation". The night before the feast, Armenians traditionally light candles during an evening church service, carrying the flame out into the darkness (symbolically bringing light into the void) and either take it home to light lamps or light a bonfire in the church courtyard.

Combining pre-Christian Armenian traditions with this Christmas celebration, the festivities included dancing and as the celebration grew, young men would leap over the fire.

The Armenian celebration of the Lord's presentation has been influenced by pre-Christian Armenian customs, such as: the spreading of ashes by farmers in their fields each year to ensure better harvests, keeping ashes on the roof of a house to keep evil spirits away, and the belief that newlywed women needed to jump over fire to purify themselves before getting pregnant.

Ethnographer Hranush Kharatyan said the tradition of lighting fire is spread not among Armenians only but other Indo-European language-speaking peoples. The fire was not having a core role but it was a subject of worshiping, in parallel with the water it was a cleaning factor.

"The fire was used for keeping back from different evil forces, to cure children, to keep back from possible threats," Kharatyan explained.

She hailed the idea of declaring the Feast of the Presentation of the Lord by Armenian Apostolic Church as the day of blessing of the newly-weds as principally the idea of blessing is put in leaping over the fire.

The ethnographer also stressed that during the year the Armenian families are organizing banquets on this holiday which is wrong. In her opinion, the rich tables on this day create financial difficulties for the young families.