Keeping the Painting on the Easel
Keeping the Painting on the Easel
Reflections on Life, Career, and the Art of Continually Becoming
Life is not a finished painting hung upon the wall to be admired as a static artifact of who we are. It is not something we frame and declare, “Here it is; this is my life.” To view life this way is to deny its very essence. Life is fluid, dynamic, and ever-changing—a living work of art that evolves with every passing moment. This is also true for professional life.
Imagine instead that your life is a painting that remains on the easel, perpetually unfinished. Each day, you approach it with fresh eyes, a brush in hand, ready to add new strokes of color, refine its details, or sometimes paint over entire sections to create something entirely new. This metaphor has helped me see life as a process—a canvas upon which we continuously create and recreate ourselves.
The Last Liturgy
Komitas’s Sacred Harmony Before the Silence, the Last Liturgy
Hratch Tchilingirian | 24 April 2025
During the chaos of World War I in Constantinople, Komitas Vardapet began composing a version of the Armenian Divine Liturgy (Badarak) for a male choir. Due to military exemptions for some educators and church servants, including a few from the Armenian Church in Galata (Istanbul neighborhood), Komitas gathered a group of about 25–30 young men and worked intensely—sometimes day and night—to train them and compose the choral arrangements, carefully crafting each voice part as its own unique melody....
We have outlived empires and can build our nation's tomorrow
We have outlived empires and can build our nation's tomorrow
CivilNet / HyeTert / Massis Post 11 November 2020
Hratch Tchilingirian, Oxford
As one of the nations in this world, whose millennia-long biography is the envy of the world, we should not allow some anomalous, self-interested forces, circles or personalities trample the national wisdom we have gained through myriads of imposed wars, destruction and displacement.
The Corona-paradox
The Corona-paradox
Hratch Tchilingirian | 20 March 2020
Societies around the world are facing what I would call the Corona-paradox: until only a few weeks ago, the internet and social media were viewed as “unhealthy” addictions that lead people to social isolation, but now we are welcoming “social distancing” as a critical form of security and protection of health.
Armenian Khatchkar in Canterbury
Armenian Khatchkar in the Canterbury Cathedral’s Memorial Garden
Hratch Tchilingirian | 2 March 2019
A new Armenian khatchkar (cross stone) was consecrated in the Canterbury Cathedral’s Memorial Garden on Friday March 2nd. The Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby presided over the ceremony.
A New Treasure Made Public
The Parikian Collection: A New Treasure Made Public
Hratch Tchilingirian | 21 February 2018
Eton College formally launched the collection of some 650 volumes of rare early Armenian printed books from the 16th to 19th centuries, bequeathed to the school by renowned British-Armenian violinist Manoug Parikian (1920-1987).
Female Diaconate
Historic Ordination of a Deaconess in the Tehran Diocese of the Armenian Church
Hratch Tchilingirian | 12 January 2018
The Primate of the Diocese of Tehran ordained a young woman as a deaconess in Tehran’s St. Sarkis Mother Church on September 25, 2017. Even as the office of deaconess had existed in Armenian Church convents for centuries, this was a historic first. It is the first time that a lay woman, not a nun, was was ordained a “parish deacon.”
National Hospital's Cigarette Paper
“Cigarette Paper” produced by the National Hospital in Constantinople
2015 July 17 | Hratch Tchilingirian (Published in Bardez, 2018, Armenian Instittue, London).
Identity in the 21st century
New ‘software’ is needed for Armenian identity in the 21st century
Hratch Tchilingirian | 14 December 2014