The Armenian Apostolic Church

Denomination·Founded 301 CE·est. ~9 million worldwide, most of them outside Armenia; diaspora figures are estimates rather than counts.

Judaism → Christianity → Oriental Orthodoxy → The Armenian Apostolic Church

The Mother See of Holy EtchmiadzinEastern Diocese of the Armenian Church of America

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Rite of The Armenian Apostolic Church

The blessing of the Holy Muron.

Every seven years the Catholicos boils and blesses the chrism at Etchmiadzin, stirring in muron from the previous blessing so that each batch carries some of the last. It is distributed to every Armenian parish in the world, and every baptism and chrismation for the next seven years uses it. The most recent blessing was on 28 September 2024.

⏱ Once every seven years, at the Mother See◌ The Catholicos of All Armenians with the bishops; the whole church receives the result
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What happensOlive oil is boiled with forty herbs and balsam, sealed with dough, then blessed with the relics of the Holy Lance and the right hand of Saint Gregory and mixed with muron from the previous blessing
What it needsA cauldron, the relics, and the bishops of both catholicosates
What it aims atTo keep every chrismation in the world connected to the same vessel
Understanding it — context, not catechism: how this rite is held

The Muron is olive oil boiled with balsam and forty herbs and flowers, sealed under dough while it cooks, and blessed with two relics — the Holy Lance kept at Etchmiadzin and the right hand of Saint Gregory the Illuminator. Because each blessing includes muron from the previous one, the church describes an unbroken chain back to Gregory. Only a catholicos may perform it, which is one of the practical marks distinguishing Etchmiadzin and Cilicia from the patriarchates. The 2024 blessing came nine years after the previous one rather than seven, the schedule having slipped through the pandemic and the war in Nagorno-Karabakh.

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