In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.
What do you think America was like in the summer of 1776?
I was in the sixth grade when my teacher asked his class a question like this. I don’t recall the actual words he used but I remember the general question. It was the spring of 1976 and America was about to celebrate its Bicentennial, and our sixth grade class—in fact the whole school—learned all about America’s independence.
We learned about the history that led up to the Declaration of Independence. We learned about the spirit of the people and we even learned about the faith needed to author such a declaration. We were allowed to talk about faith in school back then.
So, the year 1976 opened for me what has become a lifetime of fascination with the story behind the country we all now call home. Over the years, I have felt the responsibility to visit historic places that allowed me to “touch” history as much as that is possible. Like many of you, over the years I visited our nation’s Capital and sat in the upper gallery as I watched those we elected discuss national interests.
In the summer of 1976, I recall a family car trip across the country noticing nothing but boring wheat fields for the first three days and coming to the realization that those are the fields that feed America. I will never forget looking up in amazement when we arrived to Mount Rushmore. I gently remember standing at the grave of John F. Kennedy with our daughter at Arlington National Cemetery in Washington; and walking with Yeretzgin one year through row and row of white crosses that marked the graves of 10,000 American soldiers; and standing in the sands of Omaha Beach in Normandy, France where they all died. I visited Presidential libraries and museums on both coasts and stood in awe at the famous graves of Mount Vernon. I remember vividly standing on the cross-shaped memorial that honors the fallen of the USS Arizona at Pearl Harbor and prayed in the magnificent National Cathedral in Washington, D.C. and walking in to the White House just feeling the history. Every step of the way at every location, I noticed that faith always played a part. Faith is even found at the very top of the Washington Monument, which is inscribed with the Latin words: “Laus Deo” –“Praise be to God.”
Today, in Armenian Churches across the country, we will be offering prayers of praise and thanksgiving for all this land has offered our ancestors and us over the generations. The Declaration of Independence changed this world forever. As fifty-six of the Founding Fathers of this land—men of faith and courage—signed their names to that historic and celebrated document, it was considered to be their “death certificate” because King George would have undoubtedly had them all killed if the British won the American Revolution.
Let’s remember that England had the best-trained and best-equipped army on earth back in the 18th century. America’s Founding Fathers in those original thirteen colonies were farmers with only an assortment of hunting rifles and pitchforks for weapons. On this historic day in 1776, the fifty-six signers of the Declaration of Independence pledged their lives, their fortunes and their sacred honor to give birth to the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave.
As America approaches the historic 250th Anniversary of her founding, we gather in gratitude to God for the blessings America has bestowed upon generations of immigrants—Armenians among them, Ethiopians among them, every nationality of the world among them—providing refuge, opportunity and freedom.
Through this Special Anniversary Service, we will pray for our country, her leaders and her citizens with the same understanding that our Founding Fathers had that “Blessed is the Nation whose God is the Lord.”
I now invite everyone to rise and together exit the front doors of the church and gather at the flagpoles in front of the Parish House for this 250th Anniversary Blessing.
Amen.