An Armenian Funeral

 Next to the museum, there was a church so naturally I went inside and was extremely excited because I realized it was the Catholic church. There was one Catholic church in Gyumri and there it was with a big photo of Papa Francisco. He visited the church in 2016. I saw a group of ladies sitting in front and I thought I was walking into a church service. It was about 5pm so that made sense.

As I was sitting there, I noticed there were many flowers in the front of the church. I did not really pay much attention until I saw 6 men coming in the church lifting an open casket. My mouth dropped wide open and I could not believe what I was seeing. This was not a church service-this was a funeral. The open casket had an older woman that appeared to be in her 80s.They placed her casket down in the front of the main aisle and there were 3 chairs on each side of the casket where I assumed the closest family members sat together. They were staring closely at her face and a few people came up and kissed her on her forehead. One woman stood with her head in the casket crying and touching the shoulder of the deceased. 

It appeared to be the daughter who sat closest who was intensely crying and her family members sat comforting her by placing their hands on her shoulder.  I just sat in the corner being very quiet and praying for this family in their time of mourning.

Perhaps it was not appropriate for me to be there, but I was silently observing and I always am interested to learn the differences in death across cultures. It seemed pretty standard to a traditional funeral, but they sat in chairs surrounding the casket and saying their goodbyes individually. I left after about 20 minutes as I did not want to disturb anyone, but I wanted to see the rituals for Catholic Armenians.