“When you give a dinner or a supper, do not ask your friends, your brothers, your relatives, nor rich neighbours, lest they also invite you back, and you be repaid. But when you give a feast, invite the poor, the maimed, the lame, the blind. And you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you; for you shall be repaid at the resurrection of the just.” — Luke 14:12-14
Madagh is almsgiving, primarily given for the poor and needy. In the canons of St Sahag Bartev, it describes that the animals which had once been offered to idols by pagans would instead be given for the poor in almsgiving. St Nerses the Graceful mentions that, from the time of St Gregory the Illuminator, madagh would be offered on the feasts of the Resurrection, Dominical feasts and rememberances of saints, as well as in memory of the departed. According to St Gregory of Tatev, the word madagh means “to offer salt.” This is not understood as a sin-offering in propitiation of sins, which stopped with Jesus Christ, who is the Lamb of God. During a madagh, salt is blessed, then the animal is killed, cooked, and both are distributed to the poor. Salt is the example of purity and incorruption, as Christ said to His disciples, “You are the salt of the Earth.” There is no tradition in the Armenian Church of spreading blood on the forehead, for we are washed by the blood of Christ alone at holy Baptism, and we receive the anointing of oil on our foreheads during holy Chrismation.