Scriptorium
What is Vardavar — the Armenian festival of water and roses?
The Armenian name for the Feast of the Transfiguration — a movable midsummer feast, ninety-eight days after Easter, whose water-dousing and roses preserve a pre-Christian festival traditionally linked to the goddess Astghik.
Vardavar is the Armenian name for the Feast of the Transfiguration, one of the five great feasts of the Armenian Apostolic Church, celebrated ninety-eight days after Easter. Beneath the Christian feast lies an older festival of water and roses, traditionally linked to the goddess Astghik — and its most visible custom is alive today: on Vardavar, Armenians douse one another with water.
The feast has two faces. In the Armenian Apostolic Church, Vardavar is the Transfiguration of Christ — one of the five great “taghavar” feasts of the church year. But the name itself, and the water and flowers that fill the day, belong to something older that the Christian feast absorbed rather than erased. What follows sets out both: what the Church commemorates, why Armenians pour water, what the word means, the goddess behind the roses, and when the movable feast falls each year.1“Vardavar is one of the five major feasts of the Armenian Church.” — Vardan Devrikyan, “Transfiguration and the Feast of Vardavar,” Fundamental Armenology 2(4), 2016 (NAS RA / Matenadaran). The Middle East Council of Churches likewise ranks it “among the five ceremonial rites of the Armenian Apostolic Church.”
Is Vardavar a Christian or a pagan festival?
Both, in layers. Today Vardavar is the Feast of the Transfiguration — the moment in the Gospels when Christ, on the mountain, is seen shining in light before three of his apostles. It is one of the five great feasts of the Armenian church year. But the feast as it is kept absorbed an older festival that already carried the name Vardavar, and the Christian commemoration was laid over it rather than replacing it outright.
The merger left a visible seam in the calendar. From about the fifth to sixth century the Transfiguration feast settled onto the older festival's place in the year and became movable — fixed no longer to a set August date but to the fourteenth Sunday after Easter, ninety-eight days after Easter itself. In the reading of the scholar Vardan Devrikyan, the ancient feast beneath it had also preserved a memory of the Flood, which the Church reinterpreted in Christian terms as the Transfiguration of Christ. What survives on the day — the water, the roses — is older than the dedication.2The feast moved to “the 14 Sunday subsequent to the Easter, i.e. 98 days after the Easter”; and “this ancient feast that keeps the memory of the Flood, has got a new Christian reinterpretation and is related to the Transfiguration of Christ.” — Vardan Devrikyan, “Transfiguration and the Feast of Vardavar,” Fundamental Armenology 2(4), 2016. The Flood layer is Devrikyan's reading.
Why do Armenians pour water on Vardavar?
Water is the feast's signature custom. On Vardavar, people of every age douse one another with water — from buckets, hoses, and windows — with a licence the rest of the year does not grant. The soaking is understood as a survival of the pre-Christian summer festival that lies beneath the Christian feast, a water rite that the day never lost. In the cities it now takes a mass form: crowds gather at fountains and lakes, and in Yerevan fire brigades turn their hoses on the celebrants.
The older festival was as much about flowers as water. In the ethnographic record it is remembered as a festival of roses: during the feast people gathered flowers with which they adorned themselves, their homes, and their livestock, and young men gave roses to the girls. The water and the roses together are what the name Vardavar gathers up — and what the Christian feast carried forward.3During the festival people “gathered flowers with which they adorned themselves, their homes and livestock; young men gave roses to girls” — described as “the pagan festival of roses.” — Vardan R. Davtyan, in Human. Culture. Education, No. 3 (2024), pp. 51–70 (Russian; fact rendered in English, quote in the research ledger).
What does the word “Vardavar” mean?
The popular explanation reads the name in two pieces: vard, “rose,” plus var, and renders the whole as something like “the blazing of roses” or “rose-blooming.” The rose is genuinely bound up in how Armenians understand the day, and the gloss is old — but linguists treat this reading as a folk etymology rather than the settled origin of the word.4The “vard (rose) + var” reading “is a folk etymology, with the second root var likely reflecting an Indo-European root meaning ‘to bring.’” — “Vardavar,” Wikipedia, citing its reference note; corroborated by the “rose-blooming” gloss in the scholarly literature.
What the second half of the word actually derives from is not settled. One reading connects var to an ancient root meaning “to bring” or “to carry,” which would make the “rose” in the folk etymology a later re-hearing of the sound rather than the original sense. Beyond that, the deeper derivation is a matter of unresolved scholarship, and this article does not adjudicate it. What can be said plainly is that “rose” belongs to the feast's meaning and imagery, even where it may not belong to the word's roots.
Who was Astghik, and why roses and doves?
The pre-Christian festival is traditionally associated with Astghik, a goddess of water, beauty, love, and fertility in the old Armenian pantheon. Roses were counted among her attributes, and it is to the offering of roses that some accounts trace the festival's name. The association is a traditional one — carried in later tellings rather than proven by an unbroken cult — and it is best held at that level rather than asserted as continuous worship.5Vardavar is “traditionally associated with the goddess Astghik, who was the goddess of water, beauty, love, and fertility.” — “Vardavar,” Wikipedia; the pre-Christian honouring of Astghik is likewise noted by the Middle East Council of Churches. Stated here as a traditional association, Tier-B.
Alongside the roses, one still-remembered custom brings in the dove. In one account of the feast, Armenians would hang rose garlands in profusion and release doves as a sign of joy on the day — the rose and the dove, the flower and the bird, standing together for the gladness of the festival. It is a single description rather than a widely corroborated rite, and is best read as one attested tradition rather than a universal one.6On the feast Armenians would “hang many rose garlands and release doves as a sign of joy.” — N. N. Lisovoy, in Christianity in the Middle East (2020) (Russian; fact rendered in English, quote in the research ledger). Single-source; stated here as one attested account.
When is Vardavar celebrated?
Vardavar has no fixed calendar date. Because it falls ninety-eight days — exactly fourteen weeks — after Easter, it moves with Easter from year to year, always landing on a Sunday somewhere in a window from late June to early August. The most recent Vardavar fell on 12 July 2026; the next falls on Sunday, 4 July 2027. To find the date in any year, count fourteen Sundays on from Easter.
One custom is often wrongly attached to Vardavar: the blessing of grapes. That rite does not belong to Vardavar at all — it belongs to a separate summer feast, the Feast of the Assumption of the Holy Mother of God (in Armenian, Verapokhum), kept in the middle of August. Popular accounts sometimes fold the two together because both fall in high summer, but they are distinct feasts with distinct customs: water and roses on Vardavar, the blessing of the first grapes at the Assumption.7The blessing of grapes is documented for the Feast of the Assumption, not for Vardavar; the Wikipedia account of Vardavar carries the water-and-roses customs and no grape blessing. Ship as a clarification: the two mid-summer feasts are commonly conflated in popular listings.
Frequently asked questions
- Does Vardavar mean “rose”?
- Not in a settled way. The name is popularly read as vard (“rose”) plus var — “the blazing of roses” or “rose-blooming” — and the rose is genuinely part of how the day is understood. But linguists treat that reading as a folk etymology; the true origin of the word's second half is uncertain and still debated, with one reading connecting it to an ancient root meaning “to bring.” So “rose” belongs to the feast's meaning, but not necessarily to the word's roots.
- Is Vardavar a pagan or a Christian festival?
- Both, in layers. Today it is the Christian Feast of the Transfiguration, one of the Armenian Apostolic Church's five great feasts. But it overlies an older pre-Christian summer festival of water and roses, traditionally associated with the goddess Astghik, which the Church absorbed rather than erased. The water-dousing on the day is a survival of that older festival.
- When is Vardavar celebrated?
- It is a movable feast, falling ninety-eight days (fourteen weeks) after Easter — always on a Sunday, in a window from late June to early August. The most recent Vardavar was 12 July 2026; the next is Sunday, 4 July 2027.
- Why do Armenians pour water on Vardavar?
- Water-dousing is the feast's signature custom, understood as a survival of the pre-Christian water festival beneath it. On the day, people of all ages soak one another with water; historically the day also turned on flowers, with roses given and homes and livestock adorned. In cities it now takes a mass form at fountains and lakes.
- Is the blessing of grapes part of Vardavar?
- No. The blessing of grapes belongs to a different summer feast — the Feast of the Assumption of the Holy Mother of God (Verapokhum), kept in mid-August. It is often confused with Vardavar in popular accounts because both fall in high summer, but the two are separate feasts with separate customs.