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