ARMENIA IS MISSION

By Fr. Shnork G. Souin

October 1994

Armenia is unquestionably accepted as the "first Christian nation in the world." This fact continues to be a source of great joy for the nearly 7 million Armenians who are scattered throughout the world. For this reason it is perhaps, on one hand, a strange country about which to do a paper on cross-cultural ministry, since presumably it has "known" and continues to know the Gospel of Christ by the continued mission activity of the national church in Armenia, the Armenian Holy Apostolic Church. However, on the other hand, there are many reasons why it is extremely important for a "culturally" Canadian Armenian priest to think about Armenia in the context of cross-cultural ministry. I have the full expectation that I will definitely, as a representative of the Canadian Diocese of the Armenian Church, go to Armenia in the near future for the express purpose of doing this kind of ministry--preaching and teaching the Gospel of Jesus Christ in Armenia, with its unique and cultural distinctiveness.

The first part of this presentation will run over the geographical, political, and demographic features of the land called Armenia. The next section will cover the history of missions in Armenia, over-viewing some of the key movements and missionaries. Because of the varied and lengthy history of the many centuries that have passed since the time of the early Christian missionaries, some of the political and secular history that shaped the thoughts and situation of the Armenian people will need to be mentioned.

Additionally, this section will include a view to the present religious life of the people of Armenia. This analysis will include the overwhelming impact that Communism, legislative atheism, war, political-economical upheaval and the entrance of non-Christian and foreign cults and sects have made on the religious character of the populace. The resulting impact of these societal realities on the success of the continued mission of the Armenian Church, to be the constant witness to the true and life-giving Gospel of Christ are profound and will continue to affect the shape of future missionary activity.

Background:

Present day Armenia is located in what is geographically known as the region of the Near East, some referring to it as the centre or "cradle of civilization." Its immediate neighbours are Turkey to the West, Georgia to the North, Azerbaijan to the East and Iran to the South. Of those four nations all are Moslem countries except for the Northern neighbour, Georgia. Turkey and Azerbaijan, who's population is ethnically Turkic also, have a well documented and lengthy history of terror against their Christian neighbour. The Iranians have a reasonably peaceful relationship with the Armenians sharing a common enemy, the Turks. The official language of Armenia is Armenian, an Indo-European language. The 1993 population according to an estimate by the World Book Encyclopedia is 3,373,000. 90% of the people are Armenian with Kurds and Russians making up the largest minority groups.

70% of Armenians are urban dwellers. The largest cities in Armenia are Yerevan, the capital, Girovagan and Gumayri. Most urban dwellers live in apartments.

Armenia was one of the first satellites to declare independence in September 1991, some 70 years after the Sovietization of the country. This was a national dream that fructified after the initial independence of 1918 which only lasted 3 years.

Politics and nature have been unkind to the economic stability of Armenia. The economy is presently in an absolute horrendous condition. The reasons for this are many. Armenia suffered a major earthquake which devastated a large amount of its northern regions. This happened in December of 1988. Just when the country expected the promised help for the reconstruction and rebuilding of the country, by the Soviet Union, the Union broke apart.

The harsh economy is further hurt by the ongoing blockade of Armenia's borders by the Turks and their ethnic cousins Azerbaijan. The reason for this is the struggle of the Armenian enclave of Nagorno-Karabagh which seeks to gain its autonomy from Azerbaijan.

There are 14 higher learning institutions in Armenia and nearly all adults can read and write.

Although it would nice to refer to the old adage that "all Armenians are Christians," since, after all, the nation has, by the grace of God, survived as Christian for almost 1,700 years, it is realistically not a true statement. Fr. Vazken Movsesian, the editor of Window Magazine says;

During the past seventeen centuries the Armenian Church has been the primary religious expression among Armenians. Today, however, the Armenian Church is only one option among an ever increasing number of religions and philosophies that are vying for the Armenian soul.

With the democratization of Armenia, many religious sects and denominations have encroached into her territories. The majority of Armenians, about 95%, would be considered Armenian Apostolic aside from the fact that they may be atheists. This is a government policy.

While the recent departure from Soviet domination and the resulting freedom has allowed the opening up of the Armenian borders to the "cancer" of alien cults and sects that pervert and attempt to destroy the Apostolic faith of the mother Church, it has also given this same church the tremendous opportunity to freely witness to that faith with out threat of any sort of persecution. The Armenian people, like the other peoples of the former Soviet Union, are again open, and free, to hear the saving message of Jesus Christ proclaimed.

Having recently spent an evening with eight teenage seminarians from the newly opened Sevan seminary, in the Araratian diocese of Armenia, opened since the fall of Communism, I discovered that the national church may not be completely prepared to face the battle with the heretics that may lay ahead of them. These young men impressed me with their pure faith and simple piety. It was clear that they were the inheritors of a guarded and sacred faith that had been passed on to them by generations of Christians who had not been adulterate by foreign elements.

In our discussions it became clear that they were very worried by the "hundreds" of sectarian armies that had invaded there homeland but they seemed ignorant of what these strange teachings were all about. The biggest groups that in their minds have made inroads in Armenia are the Jehovah's Witness', the Pentecostals and the Roman Catholics.

The strategies employed by these sects seems to be to "feed" the people's stomachs then fill their spiritual appetites.

When speaking to the issue of Cross-Cultural Ministry in the context of the Armenian Church, one needs to see the planning and administration of activities and projects, of the Canadian Armenian missionary, in light of the direction and needs of the Mother church in Armenia. The laws of Armenia in the attitude towards religions seem to favour the Armenian Church. They are, according to Mr. Ludwig Khachadrian, the Minister of religious Affairs of the Republic of Armenia, as follows;

a/ The Armenian Church is the only registered and recognized church in Armenia. Others are classed merely as religious communities.

b/ Only the Armenian Church can preach anywhere all over Armenia, others are limited to their community and place.

c/ Proselytizing is forbidden. Since all Armenians are considered Apostolic the Church has "carte blanche."

d/ Only the Armenian Church can teach religion in the public schools.

e/ Other groups can not receive external financial help to build churches. they can only receive help for charitable work.

According to Dr. Abel Oghlukian, the Vicar-General of the Canadian Diocese, the largest and fastest growing sect in Armenia is the Pentecostal movement. The other main denominations that have made inroads are the Baptists, Seventh Day Adventists and the Evangelicals.

One of the very pressing concerns of the Mother Church in Armenia is the tremendous lack of clergy. The reasons for this are two-fold, according again to Mr. Khachadrian;

1/ During the soviet regime the clergy in Armenia were "brutally persecuted." This caused diminished enrolment in the one seminary at the monastery of Holy Etchmiadzin. There are now hundreds of new students at the two seminaries in Armenia. The Canadian Diocese has had a role in the establishment and encouragement of these two seminaries.

2/ The idea of "parish," hamaynk had been completely wiped out in Armenia. The government is encouraging the reestablish that sense to give the sense of community back to the church.

Archbishop HOVNAN (Derderian), the Primate of the Canadian Diocese, is committed to the same goal. He has been very critical of the lack of pastoral finesse by the clergy in Armenia. He says that; "not one parish 'system' exists in Armenia." He also tells of one woman in Armenia who told him that "this priest...has never once visited me...never once knocked on my door."

History of Missions:

Obviously any study of a country and people as ancient as Armenia and the Armenians is out of necessity going to have to be both very brief and broad in its overview of history. The other consideration in the preparation of an historical sketch is the way in which history, at least in this region, was recorded or rather transmitted. One needs to depend on the best and primary sources covering the conversion of Armenia to Christianity in order to gain any sort of insightful understanding to the introduction and success of the first and early Christian missions and subsequent Christianization of Armenia and her people.

Armenians can confidently trace the beginnings of Christianity in Armenia to the very apostles of Christ, St. Thaddeus and St. Bartholomew. St. Thaddeus is recorded to have had an eight year mission, from 35-43AD, ending with martyrdom, while St. Bartholomew spent sixteen years in Armenia from 44-60AD.

Arguably the best source for information regarding the evangelization of Armenia is the History of the Armenians written by a certain Agathangelos, who tells a story that seems to incorporate "a curious mixture of remembered tradition and invented legend."

From this work we learn the famous tradition of St. Gregory the Illuminator. Gregory was a Parthian who was educated in Ceasarea. He is known as the "Illuminator" because after his imprisonment he came by the invitation of the King's sister, who was secretly a Christian, to heal in the name of Christ, her brother who suffered a disfiguration and demoniacal possession after he martyred 37 virgins of the monastery at Vagharshapat. Gregory healed King Dirtad who was baptised and in his zeal proclaimed Christianity as the state religion. This happened in 301 AD, 12 years earlier than Emperor Constantine's Edict of Milan.

The next great missionary activity after the conversion was the creation of the Armenian alphabet which was commissioned to St. Mesrop-Mashdots by Catholicos Sahak. The alphabet was completed in 404AD, consisting of 36 letters.

The Alphabet was created for the express purpose of translating the sacred Scriptures into the Armenian language. This task was accomplished in 433.

This period following the translation of the alphabet ushered in the "Golden Age" of Armenian Christian history, where the writings of the Greek Fathers, the great liturgies of the Church were also translated. A whole unique and beautiful array of hymnology expressing the dogma of the Armenian church came out of this period.

The Mission Work of the Diocese of the Armenian Apostolic Church of Canada:

To say that the Canadian Armenian Church had an historic role in the mission to Armenia would be false, rather it was the Church in Armenia that had a cross-cultural mission to the west. It was her role to propagate the ancient faith to her children living in a new and strange land. The early immigrants, of whom most were the orphans of the Genocide of nearly 1.5 million Armenians, would depend on the occasional visits of priests to the new land.

What motivated the response of the Armenian Church in Canada was the call of the Armenians who were suffering at the hands of one severe blow after another--first the earthquake, then the break-up of the Soviet and the rebuilding of a broken economy, finally the war and subsequent blockade of Armenia's borders.

Strangely this action did not start by the expression of the Canadian Armenian Church to "go" and preach the Gospel in Armenia. It rather started as a humanitarian appeal. One of the first projects was an emergency Milk Fund for the starving orphans of the earthquake. As Canadian Armenians, who had never been to Armenia, saw the pathetic conditions, the ignorance about God and the Gospel they were confronted with the alarming need for real "mission."

It was almost as if God blessed the humanitarian, social action with an awareness for the preaching and teaching of the saving message of the Gospel.

The Diocese of the Armenian Apostolic Church in Canada is very fortunate to have in its clergy roster the former leader of the Centre for the Propagation of Christianity, Rev. Dr. Abel Oghlukian, who is now the Pastor of Holy Trinity Armenian Apostolic Church in Toronto and also serves as the Vicar-General of this Diocese. The CPC, founded in Armenia by the late Catholicos, His Holiness Vazken I, had as its goal and primary objective "to spread the 'light of the Gospel' among the Armenians, according to the doctrines and tenets of the Armenian Apostolic Holy Church."

According to Dr. Oghlukian the Centre is now closed due to the lack of local support and resources in Armenia. He plans to continue and encourage, in the same spirit, the mission through the activities of the Canadian Diocese.

It is because of this earlier effort that the new Department of Christian Education was formed in Canada, under the leadership of Rev. Dr. Oghlukian and the auspices of the Primate, Archbishop Hovnan Derderian.

The efforts of the Canadian Diocese, borrowed in part from the organizing principles of the defunct CPC, might be focused at;

1/ Training teachers for religious education

2/ Establishing sunday schools throughout Armenia

3/ Publications on the history, doctrines, liturgy, and other matters concerning the Armenian Church

4/ Establishing religious education courses in schools and universities

5/ Radio and television programs (televangelism)

6/ Preparation of textbooks

The activities of the Canadian Diocese in Armenia regarding Christian education have not as yet come to fruition but, the preliminary infrastructure is in place.

A crucial point to be made here is that thus far there has been no organized effort to actually train and educate Canadian Armenian missionaries for the task and challenge of evangelism in Armenia. The Armenian Church Youth Organization of Canada is mindful of this shortcoming and provisions are being made to provide this sort of training during the Spring of 1995. The specific areas that will be addressed, during the training program, will be done in consultation with the diocesan liaison in Armenia, who is better equipped to appraise the specific needs.

An Armenian Apostolic missionary should never intend to go to Armenia independent of the "approval" of the National Church. This is clearly understood in light of the fact that we are "one" church with no division and with complete doctrinal and theological agreement. We are not in communion with the Armenian Church in Armenia because of some legislative action but because we are her child, her offspring--we get our life and nourishment from the same source and foundation.

Canadian Youth Mission to Armenia: Through the efforts of the Primate of the Canadian Diocese, Archbishop Hovnan Derderian, the past two summers have seen between 20 and 50 young Armenian Canadians go to Armenia as missionaries. The program that they went with was the brainchild of the Primate and is known as the CYMA, Canadian Youth Mission to Armenia.

In its initial year the program carried out a well rounded mission that was based on the commission of our Lord in Matthew 28. The young people led by the Archbishop as well as a Canadian Diocesan priest and two deacons, reached out to more than 100 households, in which they baptised people. anointed the sick, fed the hungry, clothed the naked.

I can never forget the video clip where the Archbishop together with the group of Canadian young people stood before a crowd of 2-300 women and children and taught them how to make the sign of the cross. They handed out culturally Armenian Icons depicting the life of Christ. The Diocese had thousands of these made with Bible passages and prayers written on the back.

On the level of social ministry, the CYMA also built a school and rebuilt another school. Today, the Gospel is being taught to the children in the schools in the Araratian region of Armenia. The Diocese had the cost of bringing the priest to the school every week taken care of.

The plan for next year is to possibly build or provide 10 churches in areas where non exist, symbolizing the 10 Armenian Churches here in the Canadian Diocese. We plan to have priests, such as myself, to go for longer periods of time to try to establish parishes in these facilities.

A good number of religious publications are being sponsored by our Diocese and other literature is being prepared here to take to Armenia. For the first time, our Diocese will be preparing the Matins and Vespers in the Modern Eastern dialect of Armenia. This will be an absolutely novel experience for the people of Armenia.

Conclusion:

The simple fact that one is forced to think about cross-cultural ministry awakens one to the very real need for it. What is even better is the excitement created by knowing that one might actually have the very real possibility of "doing" it.

Although Armenia is a very strange and unfamiliar land for me, I have a strong psychological bond with it in that it is my ancestral homeland. All diasporan Armenians feel that they have received some nourishment for their souls just by the miraculous survival of the holy places, like Etchmiadzin and Khor Virab, where the persecuted saints died for the sake of their "life-giving" faith in Christ, their God.

The awe and inspiration of the history of these ancient Christian people gives me, as a diaspora Armenian, a tremendous sense of motivation to go and play just a small part to reacquaint the people of Armenia with that same Gospel. Because of the obvious cross-cultural barriers inherent for mission work in Armenia my prayer is that the Holy Spirit will provide me with what is lacking in order that I might be of service to Christ when my opportunity comes.

Shenork G. Souin

ARMENIA

1/Background of Nation:

Demographic

- Armenia first Christian nation

- Nearly 7 million Armenians who are scattered throughout the world.

- The 1993 population according to an estimate by the World Book Encyclopedia is 3,373,000.

- 90% of the people are Armenian with Kurds and Russians making up the largest minority groups.

- 70% of Armenians are urban dwellers.

- The largest cities in Armenia are Yerevan, the capital, Girovagan and Gumayri.

- There are 14 higher learning institutions in Armenia and nearly all adults can read and write.

- Most urban dwellers live in apartments.

Economic

- War, political-economical upheaval and the entrance of non-Christian and foreign cults and sects have an impact on the religious character of the populace.

- The economy is horrendous earthquake in December of 1988. Soviet Union, broke apart.

Geography

- Its immediate neighbours are Turkey to the West, Georgia to the North, Azerbaijan to the East and Iran to the South.

Political

- Armenian independence was in September 1991.

- 70 years Sovietization of the country.

- Blockade of Armenia's borders by the Turks and their ethnic cousins Azerbaijan.

Religious

- With the democratization of Armenia, many religious sects and denominations have encroached into her territories

- 95% of populace would be considered Armenian Apostolic

- The strategies employed by these sects seems to be to "feed" the people's stomachs then fill their spiritual appetites.

Politics/Law/Religion

- The laws of Armenia according to Mr. Ludwig Khachadrian, the Minister of religious Affairs of the Republic of Armenia, as follows;

a/ The Armenian Church is the only registered and recognized church in Armenia. Others are classed merely as religious communities.

b/ Only the Armenian Church can preach anywhere all over Armenia, others are limited to their community and place.

c/ Proselytizing is forbidden. Since all Armenians are considered Apostolic the Church has "carte blanche."

d/ Only the Armenian Church can teach religion in the public schools.

e/ Other groups can not receive external financial help to build churches. they can only receive help for charitable work.

- pressing concerns of the Mother Church lack of clergy.

1/ During the soviet regime the clergy in Armenia were "brutally persecuted." This caused diminished enrolment in the one seminary at the monastery of Holy Etchmiadzin.

2/ The idea of parish had been completely wiped out in Armenia.

2/ History of Missions:

- Armenians trace the beginnings of Christianity in Armenia to the apostles Thaddeus and Bartholomew.

- St. Gregory the Illuminator healed King Dirtad who proclaimed Christianity as the state religion in 301 AD.

- The creation of the Armenian alphabet.

- Scriptures into the Armenian language in 433.

3/ The Mission Work of the Diocese of the Armenian Apostolic Church of Canada:

- Mission did not start by the expression of the Canadian Armenian Church to "go" and preach the Gospel in Armenia.

- Was rather as a humanitarian appeal.

- New Department of Christian Education was formed in Canada

The efforts

1/ Training teachers for religious education

2/ Establishing sunday schools throughout Armenia

3/ Publications on the history, doctrines, liturgy, and other matters concerning the Armenian Church

4/ Establishing religious education courses in schools and universities

5/ Radio and television programs (televangelism)

6/ Preparation of textbooks

Canadian Youth Mission to Armenia:

- A well rounded mission that was based on the commission of our Lord in Matthew 28.

- Handed out culturally Armenian Icons depicting the life of Christ.

- Bible passages and prayers written on the back.

- Built a school and rebuilt another school.

Gospel is being taught to the children in the schools, Diocese bringing the priest to the school every week

- The plan for next year 10 churches in areas where non exist have priests go for longer periods of time to try to establish parishes - religious publications are being sponsored by our Diocese Matins and Vespers in the Modern Eastern dialect of Armenia.

 

Bibliography

 

Chahin M., The Kingdom of Armenia, New York: Dorsett P, 1987.

Derderian Hovnan, "Without Hesitation...," Window, Volume II, Number 2, 1991.

Khatchadrian Ludwig, "Church and State in Armenia," Window, Vo. II, Number 3, Fall, 1991.

Kurkjian Vahan, A History of Armenia, New York: AGBU Press, 1964.

Lang David Marshall, Armenia Cradle of Civilization, 3rd Ed., London: George Allan & Unwin, 1980.

Movsesian Vasken, "As for those who say...," Window, Vo. II, Number 1, Winter 1991.

Oghlukian Abel, "Challenges of the Church in Armenia," Window, Volume II, Number 2, 1991.

Ormanian Malachia, The Church of Armenia, Brookline, Mass.: Haig H. Toumayan, 1954.

Pederian Gerard, Armenia Under Arab Occupation, Toronto: Baron's Printing Services, 1993.

The World Book Encyclopedia A1, Chicagao: World Book Inc., 1993.

Thomson R. W., Agathangelos History of the Armenians, Albany: State University of New York Press, 1976.