This was several months in the making. Its still got a long ways to go, and I hope the users of the Oratsouyts Online enjoy it.
The mobile interface
More often than not, we find opportunities to use the Oratsouyts when we’re away from our desks. Perhaps, on the way to Church on a given Sunday we want to see what feast is being celebrated, or we find a few free minutes in a taxi or on a bus when we can read the day’s bible readings…. Therefore, our first priority has been to create a mobile version of the Oratsouyts Online. This is a new version of the Oratsouyts which is optimized for today’s smartphones, working on iOS and Android based mobile phones.
Most people’s lives are governed by some sort of rhythm. This rhythm is usually determined by our school, our job, and by our family. Its a vital and integral part of our lives and gives structure and context to our experiences and relationships.
But as a Christian and a member of the Armenian Orthodox Church, my life is subject to another rhythm - the rhythm of our faith. Its a rhythm which consists of fasting and celebration, prayer and commemoration.
The Armenian Church has a calendar which shifts from year to year in harmony with date of the celebration of Christ’s Resurrection, Easter. This calendar is referred to in Armenian as the Օրացոյց (pronounced O-ra-tsu-y-ts), and each day is assigned a celebration, commemoration, or fast in such a way that is meant to guide and strengthen the community of faith throughout the year.
The Oratsouyts Online
The Homepage of Oratsouyts Online, a web app for the Calendar of the Armenian Church.
In an effort to increase exposure and accessibility of the Church Calendar, I created Oratsouyts.com as a tool to make it easier for the faithful to sync their busy lives with rhythm of the Church. Its a very simple website which essentially only does one thing. It tells you what is being observed in the Church for any given day, and the corresponding Bible passages. You can also view the entire year’s calendar, and receive daily notifications (currently via Twitter only).
Some cool features
Reading Bible passages on the Oratsouyts Website is rather easy.
Read the day’s Bible passage — I often hear people say that they wish they made more of an effort to read the Bible. Following along with calendar of the Church, and reading the Bible passages for each day is a wonderful way to do this. It also helps you find common themes between passages from the Old Testament, the Gospels, and the Epistles within the context of a day’s given feast.
Calendar Filters — The feasts of the Armenian Church are organized in thematic groups. The calendar filter allows you to look at different groups of feasts with the calendar view.
Using Twitter integration to setup daily notificationsTwitter Integration — The crucial idea behind Oratsouyts is to create a tool that will keep the user in rhythm with the Church calendar. Twitter integration is perfect for this. The user can either follow the Oratsouyts on Twitter, or sign up and receive direct messages everyday with the day’s feast information.
Public API — Perhaps of interest to literally nobody except me, Oratsouyts offers a public API, which allows users to access the information used by Oratsouyts Online and use it in their application or website.
Future stuff — In the near term future I plan to translate this website into Armenian, release the calendar in iCal format (so it can be used in Google Calendar for example), and release mobile and WAP versions of the site.
For more information about the project, you can visit the Oratsouyts project page where release information will be posted on a regular basis.
