7:00PM – Reading of the Holy Scriptures;

7:30PM -Christmas Eve Badarak.

9:00PM – Fellowship hour.

As according to the Church the day is changed at 17:00 p.m., after the evening service, the feast of the Holy Nativity and Theophany of Our Lord Jesus Christ starts on the eve, in the evening of January 5, and is continued after the midnight, on January 6.
During the first centuries of Christianity, the night before every feast, a vigil was kept. In the evening the faithful assembled in the place or church where the feast was to be celebrated and prepared themselves by saying prayers, chanting Psalms and reading Holy Scripture. As more feasts were added to the liturgical calendar, the number of vigils was greatly reduced and today these vigils are only kept on dominical feasts. In addition, incorporated into the vigil on the eves of major feasts the church celebrated the “Jrakalooyts” [or “Lucernarium” in Latin]. During Vespers [Evening hour], candles were lit throughout the whole church as the ancient hymn “O Gladdening Light” was chanted. This practice of “Jrakalooyts” is now reserved only to the eves of Nativity and Easter, and has been extended to distributing candles to all the faithful who, in earlier times, presumably carried them in procession around the church during the great processional of the Divine Liturgy.

The idea of this procession, now relegated to the celebrant, deacons and servers, is sometimes thought to symbolize the Light of the Divine Manifestation [at Theophany] circumcising the hearts of the faithful reflection of the Jewish circumcision within the context of purification in this case, the purification of the hearts of the faithful. The concept of Jrakalooyts is recorded from about the year 350 A.D. as a local custom in Jerusalem, and later in 542 A.D. the Emperor Justinian instituted it in Constantinople. The Armenians, quite populous in the city of Jerusalem, probably contributed to its inception. Today, during the evening services of Christmas in the Armenian Church, and on into the Divine Liturgy of that night, the churches are brightly lit with candles and vigil lights, celebrating the great “Light of the Manifestation”. Candles are distributed to the faithful who hold them in awe of this great happening. It was, and is still a tradition for the faithful to carry these lighted candles home and to keep them lit during the celebration of the birth and baptism of our Lord.

During the Eve of Theophany, the Old Testament readings from Genesis, Exodus and the Prophets are read prior to the proclamation of the Lord’s birth and manifestation during the Divine Liturgy. The entire day preceding the Feasts of the Nativity and Easter is known as Jrakalooyts} And into the night the Church reads the Gospel of the Nativity according to St. Luke

Bible Readings : Titus 2:11 15, Matthew 2:1 12