Iranian Government News
January 1, 2013 Tuesday


New Year bells ring in churches in Islamic Iran

Tehran


2013 New Year's Eve celebrations were marked at Iranian churches with
the simultaneous happy ringing of the bells here Monday at midnight
most jubilantly.


According to the IRNA night service, in one such celebration held at
the beginning of the new Christian year, 2013, at Tehran's Saint Mary
Church, also known as the Saint Serkis Church, the dear Iranian
Armenian Christians gathered for the New Year celebrations.

The ceremony began on the first seconds of the Tuesday morning with
the happy ringing of the church bells, followed by the singing of
Christmas songs.

The keynote speaker at the ceremony was the Archbishop of the Saint
Serkis Church Father Sibveh Serkisian who congratulated the beginning
of the New Year after reciting some holy verses from the Holy Book,
the Bible, and then he prayed for international peace and the
happiness of the souls of the bygone folks.

The Iranian Christians, along with the Christians around the globe,
celebrate Christmas from December 25th to January the 6th, which mark
two different narrations about the auspicious birth anniversary of
Messiah, Jesus Christ (P), including the beginning of the New Year.

Iranian First Vice-President Mohammad Reza Rahimi congratulated the
entire world Christians on Jesus Christ's birth anniversary and the
beginning of the new Christian year.

In separate messages to his Christian counterparts in different
countries on Tuesday, Rahimi felicitated the beginning of the year
2013 to the Christian governments and nations.

He also expressed the hope that the New Year would cause promotion of
justice, kindness, welfare and security for all, and that cruelty and
discrimination would be uprooted across the world.