Letter to the Editor, Armenian Studies Program

Armenian Studies Program

5245 N. Backer Ave. PB4

Fresno CA 93740-8001

Dear Editor,

Thank you for sending me the Vol. 32, No.4 of Hye Sharzhoom in which there are two reports that prompt me to write this brief comment.

Armen Arikian’s report entitled “Mouraviev Reveals Secrets of the Armenian Alphabet” is rather exaggerated and uncritical. What secrets? I wonder if anyone in the audience mentioned to Mr. Mouraviev that his findings could in no way be defined as “secrets”. There are few nations in the world that have an eyewitness account of the origins of their alphabet and literary heritage. The definitive bedrock source for the origin of the Armenian alphabet is Koriwn Vardapet’s Vark Mashtots (The Life of Mashtots), which is also the source of information for Movses Khorenatsi and Ghazar Parpetsi.

The first stage of finding an alphabet entailed trying to adopt an already existing alphabet. The so-called Danielian letters of Syriac origin found “unexpectedly” (zyankardsagiwt) were “taught to a group of young children... yet when they became aware of the fact that these letters were insufficient to form all the syllables of the Armenian language, especially since the letters proved to have been buried and then resurrected from other languages, they found themselves once again in the same anxieties and for some time were engaged in search of a solution” (Koriwn VI). The Danielian letters were an obsolete Aramaic alphabet consisting of 22 letters, totally inadequate for Armenian.

Mesrop invented “new and wonderful letters of the Armenian language (norog ev skancheli...)”. Mesrop Mashtots “designed, named, determined their order and devised the syllabication” (Koriwn VIII). Mouraviev’s theory that “Mashtots modified the now extinct Danielian alphabet to form the Armenian alphabet” is total nonsense. The significance of Mesrop’s work is not in the shaping of the external forms of the letters, this was done by the “Hellenic scribe named Rafinus (Hropanos)”, but in determining the number of sounds needed for the Armenian language. [Dr. Vrej Nersessian, ”Armenian” in Encyclopedia of the Languages of Europe, ed. by Glanville Price, Oxford University Press,1998, pp.13-18].

The other piece that caught my attention was “How do you feel the genocide affects Armenians?” Three views were expressed. Two of the views “I am here and I exist” or “we are here to stay, and grow” reminds me of Parouyr Sevak’s sentiments. The most objectionable view is that the Genocide “is a major part of the Armenian identity”. The characteristics of Armenian identity were forged 1915 years before and if the Turks tomorrow accept their responsibility for the Genocide does this mean we Armenians will be deprived of  our identity? The characteristics of our identity are our Christian Faith (301 AD), the invention of the Armenian alphabet (406 AD), the translation of the Armenian Bible (413 AD), the moral victory won at the Battle of Avarayr (451 AD), the creation of the Bagratid (885 AD) and Cilician (1080 AD) kingdoms, the 20,000 illuminated manuscripts, the vast architectural heritage, the 2,000 sharakans, adoption of printing in 1512 AD, the publication of the first Armenian Bible in Amsterdam in 1666 AD, the military victory over the Turks at the Battle of Sardarabad on 28th May 1918, the Stalingrad of Armenian history, and the succession of the creation of three independent Armenian Republics.

The greatest achievement of the Armenian people in the 20th century is the defeat of the Turkish army of 75,000 at the battle of Sardarabad by the refugees, orphans, and displaced Armenians who in an act of defensive bravery in which the whole Armenian population participated saved Armenia from total annihilation and saved the world from the creation of a Pan-Turkish Empire to replace the decapitated Ottoman Empire.

The moral victory won at the Battle of Avarayr in 451 AD and the military victory won at Sardarabad in 1918 AD define Armenian identity and not the Genocide.

Rev. Dr. Vrej Nerses Nersessian

Vicar of St. Eghiche Armenian Church, London

Feast Day of the Appearance of the Cross

Is the Armenian Church Orthodox?

A debate is raging in the columns of Keghart in connection with an attempt by Catholicos Aram of Cilicia to introduce the word ‘Orthodox’ in the name of the Armenian Church at the World Council of Churches.

There are two preliminary comments to make. First, it is puzzling that after 2011 years we Armenians are not certain of our Church’s name. Second, having put so much emphasis on being a ‘national church’ we have forgotten the fact that as well as being a national Church (Azgayin ekeghetsi) we have also been an inseparable part of the Universal Church.

In the Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church the term ‘orthodoxy' is defined as “A religious system, right belief, as contrasted with heresy. The word is used especially of those Churches in Eastern Christendom which are in communion with Constantinople, collectively described in ancient times as ‘the holy, orthodox, catholic, apostolic Eastern Church’ (i agia ort’odoxos kat’oliki aposyoliki anatoliki ekklisia) and today as the ‘Eastern Orthodox’ to distinguish them from the separated bodies known collectively as the ‘Oriental Orthodox Churches’ [or non-Chalcedonian Churches].

The Armenian Church is Endhanrakan, i.e. catholic because it has been part of the Universal Church from the day of its birth and remains so until today. Every Sunday in the celebration of the Armenian Liturgy in the recitation of the Nicene Creed the deacon declares “We believe also in only one catholic and apostolic holy church”. At the conclusion of the creed there is also this unique formulation of St Gregory the Illuminator called the ‘Armenian Prayers’ which sums up the entire doctrinal position of the Armenian Church: “As for us (we Armenians) we shall glorify Him who was before the ages, worshipping the Holy Trinity and the One Godhead, the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, now and always and unto ages of ages. Amen”. This is the most definitive expression of the doctrine of the Trinity in patristic literature.

The Armenian church is Arak’elakan i.e. apostolic, since the teaching of the Holy Gospel in Armenia was brought by the apostles Sts. Thaddeus and Bartholomew ‘arajin lousavoritchk’, the ‘first illuminators’. Apostolicity is the seal of ‘eternal discipleship’ (yavitenakan ashakertoutean). It is not a epithet of choice but one of the four marks of the Church set forth in the Nicene Creed. It signifies the continuity of doctrine. Apostolicity ensured the orthodoxy and the authenticity of a Church.

The use of the term became part of the name of the Armenian Church when the church of Rome evolved a super-apostolicity by making St. Peter the bishop of the Apostles and the Pope the bishop of bishops. This stance was further developed by the Catholic Armenians of the Mekhitarist Order, who attributed the origin of the Armenian Church not to the Apostles Sts. Thaddeus and Bartholomew but to St. Gregory the Illuminator. Later as a consequence of the Russian occupation of East Armenia, a constitution called the “Polozhenie” came into being in 1836, in which the term “Gregorian” - a novel and unwelcome appellation - was coined by the Russian Church. It refers to St. Gregory the Illuminator, the patron saint of the Church and its first Catholicos. The Russians wanted to attach a denominational attribute to the name of the Armenian Church and chose a sectarian adjective for the purpose.

In the eighteenth century with the emergence of the Armenian Catholic, Armenian Protestant and Armenian Evangelical denominations it was important for the At’or Haystaneayts (the Armenian See) to emphasise its Apostolicity.

The Armenian Church is oughapar, i.e. orthodox. It is orthodox because it has continuity of faith with the Apostles and it confesses the doctrines formulated in the first three Ecumenical Councils, which are Nicea (325 AD), Ephesus (431 AD) and the First Council of Constantinople (381 AD). The Armenian Catholicos Aristakes I (325-333) is a signatory to the proceedings of the First Ecumenical Council. The rejection of the doctrinal formulations of the Fourth Ecumenical council convened in Chalcedon in 451 AD does not make the Armenian Church ‘heretical’ nor what it believes ‘heresy’. Sixteen National Councils (Azgayin Zoghovk) from the time of St. Gregory to the Council of Jerusalem held in 1661 have upheld the position of the Armenian Church adopted in 506 AD. For this very reason I and several others were highly critical of the Common Declaration signed unilaterally by the former Catholicos H.H. Karekin I and H.H. John Paul II in December of 1996. Like his predecessor, Catholicos Aram I, unlike the Catholicose of Holy Etchmiadzin, have become slaves to the World Council of Churches and the habitual desire to iron out “our differences in Christology” by signing compromising statements, which in effect renege its own original claim to orthodoxy, which is an incoherent thing to do.

Let us not keep producing formal compromise statements at variously initiated ecclesiastical conferences and meeting, for if we already, truly accept each other’s orthodoxy (with a small “o”), we do not have to engage in that sort of gratuitous fraternization. Let us, instead, keep conversing in a loving frame of mind, with the full recognition that we, all of us, now see things, as in mirror, darkly.

“Save thy people and bless thine inheritance; guard the fullness of thy Church”.

Rev. Dr. V. Nerses Nersessian
Vicar of the Church of St Yeghiche
London