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Main Barekendan: (Armenian: Բուն Բարեկենդան) takes places on the previous Sunday of the forty-day Great Lent. It is a unique celebration, which is doesn’t directly relate to any order or instruction of the Holy Bible. Principally, it is a feast of happiness and freedom that reminds the folks of the festivities and joys of the forerunner paradise. In Europe, it is simply called Carnival. Among the Armenians, it is called ‘Abeghatogh’ according to bishopric reasons, however, in the public it is known as Barekendank, BariKyank.

The preceding Saturday evening of Main Barekendan, the certain of the church covers the altar’s facade during the liturgy, and it shall remain so until the completion of the forty-day Lent which ends with Easter. The curtain might open only in exceptional cases, such as in the celebration of the naming of a church, on holy feast where a holy liturgy is necessary. On the day of the Main Barekendan, the holy liturgy is served on the altar behind the curtains, where religious songs (hymns and pslams) sung; which is, perhaps, refers to Adam’s situation in the Elysium (elysian paradise) when the sinless fist man sees God: “Rejoice in joy with an unregretful laughter”.

Main Barekendan is a movable feast; it is celebrated forty days before the Easter, without counting the Saturdays and Sundays, this very period forms the Great Lent.

As an ethnical day of celebration, it is consisted of pagan elements, such as festive dinner, horse-riding, sword-fencing, disguising in various animal faces (according to the pagan belief, the person who’s wearing the mask; is filled with the supernatural powers of the sacred animal that he embodies it).

The masked games and revelries tradition comes from the festivities of Dionysus and Saturn (which were held in Europe) and the pagan Navasartian festivities of Ancient Armenia. In variety of Armenian provinces, the Main Barekendan was celebrated with slender ritual changes, as a popular theatrical celebration and a day of laughter and constant party.

Nowadays, the Main Barekendan is celebrated in a more moderate manner among the Armenian societies. The Armenian Church celebrates it every year in the period between February the 1^st and March the 7^th.                 

Source: Encyclopedia of "Who Is Who; The Armenians", volume I, editor in chief Hovhannes Ayvazyan, Yerevan, 2007. (in Armenian).