Author: Alex Alahverdian

An Emergency Fundraising Appeal
for Our Armenian Brothers & Sisters in Lebanon  

Dear Parishioners & Friends,

We have all seen the dreadful and haunting images of Tuesday’s calamitous explosion in Beirut and the devastation it wrought. Now we are beginning to learn its bitter toll in lives lost, bodies broken and livelihoods shattered like the glass of the buildings it destroyed.     

In recent years and months, our brethren in Beirut have been buffeted, battered and broken by political crisis and economic crisis and pandemic, only now to be bloodied by this. In one terrible instant, our community took another blow, with homes, shops, community centers and churches heavily and indiscriminately damaged. Not even the Catholicosate itself was spared. 

Consistent with the pontifical proclamation of His Holiness Aram I, Catholicos of the Great House of Cilicia and the exhortation of His Eminence Archbishop Anoushavan, we make this special emergency fundraising appeal for our Armenian brothers and sisters in Lebanon. 

Please give as generously as you can by sending a check to St. Illuminator’s Cathedral (221 East 27th Street, New York, NY 10016) and writing “Lebanon Relief Fund” in the memo section. You can also donate by PayPal by visiting our website at stilluminators.org and clicking on “Donations.”  

All donations from the St. Illuminator’s Family will be transferred to the Armenian Prelacy and from the Prelacy to the Catholicosate of Cilicia for the benefit of all the suffering Armenians of Lebanon. 

Yours most faithfully and gratefully,
Rev. Fr. Mesrob Lakissian and the Board of Trustees