"Dear friends, there was a time when I lived in darkness, in the icy cold of a winter night". This is the beginning, like a "living letter", of the testimony of rev. Mesrop Parsamyan, of the Armenian Apostolic Church, who spoke this morning to the 2,500 delegates of the third European Ecumenical Assembly in Sibiu. "I was born in Armenia during the Soviet period, when many people lived as if God did not exist he said . But I remember very well the day God spoke to me and warmed, with His love, Armenia, which had just been released from the chains of Soviet atheism". "It was a Saturday morning in Summer and I was only 12 he went on . I had decided to join some sporty friends who were walking up to the monastery of Khor Virap". "We covered 40 km under the hot sun and as we reached the monastery it was night". After spending the night at the monastery, something new awaited him as he woke up: "That morning was totally different from any other and will always remain stamped in my soul". After praying with the monks and partaking of their liturgies, "I felt as if something infinite but important had changed my soul". It happened fourteen years ago, and young Mesrop is now in Sibiu to give his testimony. ” “
