c. 1996 Religion News Service
WORCESTER, Mass. (RNS)-Armenian Christians in America, divided into two church jurisdictions for more than 60 years by Cold War politics, are on the road to reunion under a charismatic new spiritual leader.
Karekin I, elected in Armenia in April as the catholicos, or worldwide head of the Armenian Apostolic Orthodox Church, is making old barriers crumble on his first visit to the United States in his new role.”No one is allowed to speak of two churches,”the 63-year-old black-robed monk, scholar and teacher has been telling receptive audiences throughout the nation.
Members and priests affiliated with the two factions have attended all of Karekin’s appearances since his arrival in New York Jan. 10 for a seven-week visit to the United States and Canada. His trip will end in Boca Raton, Fla., Feb. 18.
Karekin’s message is that the Cold War is over, Armenia is now an independent republic freed of Soviet domination, and it’s time to look forward to a future in which Armenians are united as one people and one church.”We are no longer of that generation that lived by the memory of the past,”Karekin told a standing-room-only crowd of more than 500 people who turned out here Wednesday (Jan. 17) at the Church of Our Saviour. The church, established in 1891, is the oldest Armenian congregation in the country.
Administration of the Armenian church in America has been divided since 1933, when a split developed over the status of the church in Soviet Armenia. The Armenian Apostolic Church, fearing communist infiltration, chose to ally itself with the Catholicate of Cilicia in Lebanon rather than with the Patriarchate in Armenia. The Armenian Church of America, the church’s original U.S. diocese, founded in 1892, remained loyal to the Patriarchate in Armenia.
A”unity commission”is working to bring together the two jurisdictions, both of which are based in New York.
Karekin, who was born in Syria and baptized Neshan Sarkissianas, served as primate of the Armenian Apostolic Church in America from 1974 to 1977.
Christopher Zakian, public relations director for the other branch, the Armenian Church of America, said,”A lot of the division goes back to my great-grandfather’s and grandfather’s time. It really doesn’t matter now.” The Rev. Tateos Abdalian, pastor of St. George Armenian Church in Hartford, Conn., said Karekin’s visit is mobilizing many unity-minded people for a quick resolution to the split.”There is no reason for administrative division anymore,”Abdalian said.
Armenian Christians in the United States and Canada are estimated to number about 1 million, 50,000 of them in the greater New York area. Other population centers are around Boston, Worcester, Detroit, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, and Fresno, Calif. Other communities are expanding in Wisconsin, Texas and Florida.
The Armenian Church is similar in beliefs, rites and sacraments to the Roman Catholic and Greek Orthodox churches, but it has been separate since a fifth-century division following the Ecumenical Council of Chalcedon.
Armenian immigration to America peaked in the aftermath of the systematic annihilation of about 1.5 million Armenians by Ottoman Turks between 1915 and 1923. An additional 500,000 Armenians were deported. Despite broadly accepted historical evidence, the Turkish government continues to deny that genocide occurred.
Political unrest in the Middle East contributed to another wave of immigration from Lebanon, Iran and Iraq beginning in the 1950s and continuing through the 1980s.
Church tradition says the Armenian Church was founded in the first century by two of the original apostles of Jesus Christ, St. Thaddeus and St. Bartholomew. In 301 A.D., the ruling King Tiridates III was converted to Christianity. As a result, Armenia was the first nation in the world to declare Christianity its state religion.
Since then, Etchmiadzn, a city near the capital of Yerevan in the Republic of Armenia, has been the seat of the catholicos.
MJP END RENNER
