The Armenian church is Orthodox and is somewhat interconnected with the Russian Orthodox tradition- the Straight truth, so to speak. One would imagine that funeral customs would be similar., An interesting feature of RO mortuary practice is the ceremony, which corresponds to a viewing or wake- but is called the parastas. this is related to the Latin word Paratus- Ready, standing by, and also is connected with the term Parastatic- standing, or (On Tap_ pressure, which is also used by the Russians. Russian locomotives have gauges for Parastatic and residual pressures. the parastatic concept is not used in the US for RR applicatons, though it is used in fire-fighting hydraulics. there you have it. Armenia was one of the constitutuent Soviet Republics ( as opposed to overrn block countries such as Poland or East GermanY) and was fully a part of the USSR, in fact the Armenia Soviet Socialist Republic. It stands to reason Russian spiritual traditions were honored.