Culture

Holy Monday

The Gospel readings tell us about the story of the “cursed fig tree.” On his way back to Jerusalem Jesus was hungry. He saw a fig tree by the side of the road and went to it, but found nothing on it except leaves.

So He said to the tree, “You will never again bear fruit!” At once the fig tree dried up. The disciples saw this and were astounded.

“How did the fig tree dry up so quickly?” they asked. Jesus answered, “If you believe you will receive whatever you ask for in prayer” (Mt 21:22).

According to the historian Stepannos of Syounie, living in the 7th century, the fig tree “is the circumcised people to whom hungry Jesus came and found no fruit on it, but only seeming life, so as the result of His coming to the tree dried up.”

Sources: armedia.am, Qahana.am

Vigen Avetisyan

Recent Posts

The History of Armenian Coinage and Money: From Ancient Times to the Dram

From weighed silver and Achaemenid-era imports to the kings of Sophene, the coins of Tigranes…

12 hours ago

Weapons of the Armenian Highland: From the First Swords to the Age of Firearms

Military history series · Armenian Highland, 4th millennium BCE – 18th century CE Introduction: why…

1 day ago

Shamiram 2026: A Bronze Age Horse Burial, an Urartian Megalithic Tower and Three Thousand Years of Continuous Life on the Aragats Foothills

How the 2026 Armenian-Italian field season at the Shamiram fortress and necropolis in Aragatsotn adds…

3 days ago

“If I Hadn’t Acted, We Would All Be Dead”: The Shaki Attack and the Mother Who Fought Back

On October 1, 2026, an armed Azerbaijani soldier entered a family home in Syunik, Armenia.…

1 week ago

Written in Wool, Carved in Stone: The Khachkar, the Carpet, and the Struggle to Name Armenian Weaving

A 19th-century Baluch rug beside a 13th-century khachkar from Hovhannavank: a shared design logic, and…

1 week ago

An Armenian Bride from Kharberd: A Photograph from the Danish National Archives

A portrait from the Armenian highlands Two women stand before a painted studio backdrop of…

2 weeks ago