What is an Armenian Christian?

An introduction to the First Nation to adopt Christianity, in 301 A.D.

See also: 

• Armenian Genocide Resource Page
• What is an Assyrian Christian?

What is an Armenian Christian?

by Anton C. Vrame, Ph.D.

Director, Department of Religious Education

Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America

April 25, 2015

The Armenian Genocide Memorial and Museum

On April 24, 1915, Ottoman authorities arrested 250 Armenian intellectuals and community leaders in Constantinople. They were sent to Chankri and Ayash (cities in central Anatolia), where they were later slain. For this reason, April 24 marks the beginning of the Armenian Genocide, where it is estimated between 1 and 1.5 million people were killed (http://www.armenian-genocide.org/). Many American cities, especially those with sizeable Armenian populations such as Boston, will be marking the 100th anniversary with prayer and vigil, but also the continued effort to have these mass killings recognized around the world as the first genocide of the 20^th century (http://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2015/04/22/centennial-genocide-sharpens-grief-for-local-armenians/wDHsRDW0LPfGJco5vBBPiO/story.html). 

Today (April 24, 2015) in Yerevan, Armenia, the Armenian Church canonized the victims as saints.

The Ottomans also singled out other minority communities at this time, including the Greek Orthodox and Assyrian Christian. Many Greek Orthodox readers of this article may trace their roots to Anatolia and the population exchanges in the 1920s between Greece and Turkey.

Armenia was the first nation to adopt Christianity, in 301 AD, but Tradition holds that St. Thaddeus, one of the twelve Apostles of Christ, preached there in the first century. The Armenian Church did not accept the decisions of the Council of Chalcedon, 451, (the Fourth Ecumenical Council) and subsequent councils. This early schism in Christianity has yet to be reconciled, although great progress has been made in the last fifty years.

What do Armenian Christians believe? Space prohibits a detailed examination, but some brief statements (From Welcome to the Armenian Church, published by St. Vartan Press of the Diocese of the Armenian Church of America, Eastern), we find the following:

In Pictures: Christian Copts Stand Firm in Midst of Persecution

by Raymond Ibrahim — 9/7/2013

Below are some pictures of Egypt’s Christian Copts, still attending and holding worship services in their churches that were recently destroyed, desecrated and/or torched by the Muslim Brotherhood and their supporters.  According to one Egyptian human rights lawyer, as of August 18, “82 churches, many of which were from the 5th century, were attacked by pro-Morsi supporters in just two days.”  Here’s a video of one of these churches ablaze.

The perseverance of Egypt’s Christian Copts is a testimony to their heritage — for they have seen tens of thousands of their churches destroyed since the 7th century, when Islam invaded Egypt with the sword — and yet they still stand firm in their faith.

VIDEO: 20th Anniversary of the Repose of Hieromonk Seraphim (Rose)

* September 2 is the anniversary of the repose of Hieromonk Seraphim Rose. I plan to post extensively on Father Seraphim throughout this week.

This is a very special video, a digest of events and talks from the 20th anniversary of Father Seraphim's repose, held at St Herman of Alaska Monastery in Platina CA in 2002. Originally produced and made available by the Father Seraphim Rose Foundation, their website is no longer functioning, and the DVD and VHS versions seem to no longer be available, so I am posting this online for the edification of the faithful.

Features brief audio clips from some of Fr Seraphim's talks, a sermon at the Divine Liturgy by Fr Thomas Hopko, some wonderful remarks at the luncheon by Hieromonk Damascene, some warm and edifying personal recollections of Father Seraphim by another of his spiritual children, Fr Alexey Young (Hieromonk Ambrose in monastic tonsure), a tour of Father Seraphim's monastic cell, and much more.

'Do Not Be Hearers Only' - Podcasts and Recordings of Father Seraphim Rose

* September 2 is the anniversary of the repose of Hieromonk Seraphim Rose. I plan to post extensively on Father Seraphim throughout this week.

UPDATED 9/5/2013, 6:30PM EDT

If there is any danger in venerating the saints, it is that we may become a little complacent about our heroes. But the goal of the Christian Life is not hero worship, but theosis, to become "partakers of the divine nature" (2 Peter 1:4), through the acquisition of the Holy Spirit.

The Christian life is always tied to the practice of it, which includes ascetical efforts (prayer, prostrations, fasting), charitable acts (almsgiving), and heeding the call to "deny oneself, take up one's cross, and follow Christ." This is what makes the saints stand out, and it is what we are to be mindful of when we venerate the saints. They show us it is possible to repent, deny ourselves, persevere, be faithful, love God, and love our neighbor. And they exhort us to follow them and join them in the heavenly realm.

For this posting during the Week of Blessed Hieromonk Seraphim of Platina, I've selected a number of special recordings to rouse us all to acts of faith. Except for Living the Orthodox Worldview, most of these are available as MP3 downloads. Play in your browser, or download to your iPod, computer or other device.

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God's Revelation to the Human Heart

MP3, Play in Browser, 1 hr, 10 min.

The introduction and first several minutes of the recording are read by a monk of St Herman Monastery, then Fr Seraphim's voice completes the recording. This is a very unique and much beloved talk of Father Seraphim's.

“When conversion takes place, the process of revelation occurs in a very simple way—a person is in need, he suffers, and then somehow the other world opens up. The more you are in suffering and difficulties and are ‘desperate’ for God, the more He is going to come to your aid, reveal Who He is and show you the way out.…”

—Fr. Seraphim Rose

 What does man seek in religion, and what should he seek in it? How does God reveal Himself in order to bring man to a knowledge of the Truth? How does suffering help this revelation to occur? Fr. Seraphim Rose addressed these and other issues during a lecture at the University of California, Santa Cruz, in 1981. GOD’S REVELATION TO THE HUMAN HEART is a transcription of that lecture, together with the question-and-answer session that followed between Fr. Seraphim and the university students.

   

Drawing upon a wealth of sources—the Holy Scriptures, patristic writings, the Lives of ancient and modern saints, and accounts of persecuted Christians in today’s world—Fr. Seraphim leads the audience to the core of all Christian life: the conversion of the heart of man, which begins to burn with love for Christ and transforms one into a new being.

Order the book from St Herman Press

$5.00, 48 pages, full color cover, paperback

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Living the Orthodox Worldview
CD Recording, 71 minutes
$12.00 — St Herman of Alaska Press
Transcript

Living the Orthodox Worldview is a recording of a lecture given by Fr. Seraphim Rose at the 1982 St. Herman Pilgrimage at the St. Herman Monastery in Platina California. It was the final pastoral talk of Fr. Seraphim's life, the fruit of his spiritual growth as an Orthodox Christian and his matured outlook as an Orthodox pastor. It contains many of the themes that he emphasized during the final years of his life, especially the need to have one's Orthodox Faith enter into and transform the whole of one's existence. This recording also gives ample evidence to Father Seraphim's pastoral warmth, and his gentle sense of humor.

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Signs of the End of the World

MP3 in two parts

Part 1: Download • Part 2: Download

Transcript (at Orthodox America)

This widely circulated talk from 1981 was recorded at the now famous visit Father Seraphim made to UC Santa Cruz.

Seeker of the Truth: In Memory of Hieromonk Seraphim (Rose)

* September 2 is the anniversary of the repose of Hieromonk Seraphim Rose. I plan to post extensively on Father Seraphim throughout this week.

Pravoslavie.ru — Originally published 9/2/2012

“Christ’s call is still reaching to us; let us begin to listen to it.” These words of Father Seraphim (Rose)—ascetic, theologian, and preacher—are relevant today more than ever. His books helped many to hear this call. Written in the 1970s and ‘80s for his contemporaries lost in the intellectual wastelands, his works are today even more relevant, because today’s “intellectuals” are wandering lost in even more dangerous deserts of spiritual morbidity.

Fr. Seraphim in the St. Elias Skete, Noble Ridge, near the St. Herman

of Alaska Monastery in Platina, Cal. In the background is Mt. St. Herman.

Father Seraphim departed to the Lord on September 2, 1982—30 years ago. In honor of this day, Pravoslavie.ru has asked several pastors of the Russian Orthodox Church to talk about what Father Seraphim means to them.

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Archpriest Vladimir Vigilyansky: Books by Father Seraphim (Rose) played a very important role during the period of my life when I was coming into the Church. When I read during the early 1980s in samizdat Orthodoxy and the Religion of the Future and Signs of the End Times, I was stunned by his ability to connect and place into Christian context the scattered and multi-faceted phenomena of modern times. He taught me that that the history of mankind, indeed the very life of every person is filled with meaning.  Father Seraphim has remained a unique example of a missionary in whom were combined a powerful mind and asceticism, and the ability to speak with fervent faith to his readers in their own language. His path to Orthodoxy was thorny, but through his personal experience and choice by both the mind and the heart, he brought and will continue to bring a multitude of people to the Church. _______ Archpriest Andrei Tkachev: This man’s name and information about him entered into my life during the time when the song, “Good-bye America, o-o-o” was a fresh hit. Secretly raised on a love for a country of “forbidden fruits” and its culture, many of us truly viewed America as a country “where I will never be” and where “you can find everything”, but you won’t find Orthodoxy, and probably never will. In our country during that period, whole generations were discovering the Orthodox faith like a kind of “Atlantis”, and we were greatly surprised to learn that a similar discovery was taking place in other countries by people of other cultures, including in the States.

Solzhenitsyn's 1978 Harvard Address: VIDEO and TEXT

Here is the original broadcast video, with English translation, and the complete text to follow along. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn was a prophetic voice, and nowhere is that more evident than in this rightly famous address. Fr Seraphim Rose focused on many of Solzhenitsyn's observations, of course from an Orthodox Christian viewpoint, therefore they may be considered together.

I assure you, you will be stunned at what he says about the loss of courage in the West, about the Press, about every aspect of his analysis.

If you have the means to watch this on a large screen TV (through an AppleTV or other set-top box with YouTube), I would urge you to make it an event for your family and friends, or for your parish. Pop some popcorn, hand out notepads, even pause every so often to discuss some radical point or another. This is not a past event for us to venerate, but a call to prayer, to repentance, to action, and to witness (martyria).

A World Split Apart

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's 1978 Harvard Commencement Address

PRAVMIR — Posted June 8, 2013

Thirty-five years ago today – on June 8, 1978 – Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, who had arrived in the United States three years earlier, delivered the commencement address at Harvard University. The “Harvard Address,” as it has popularly come to be known, is most likely Solzhenitsyn’s most famous work of non-fiction. Famous, that is, but little read. On its thirty-fifth anniversary, we offer this prophetic work for our readers’ reconsideration.

I am sincerely happy to be here with you on this occasion and to become personally acquainted with this old and most prestigious University. My congratulations and very best wishes to all of today’s graduates.

Harvard’s motto is “Veritas.” Many of you have already found out and others will find out in the course of their lives that truth eludes us if we do not concentrate with total attention on its pursuit. And even while it eludes us, the illusion still lingers of knowing it and leads to many misunderstandings. Also, truth is seldom pleasant; it is almost invariably bitter. There is some bitterness in my speech today, too. But I want to stress that it comes not from an adversary but from a friend.

Three years ago in the United States I said certain things which at that time appeared unacceptable. Today, however, many people agree with what I then said…

The split in today’s world is perceptible even to a hasty glance. Any of our contemporaries readily identifies two world powers, each of them already capable of entirely destroying the other. However, understanding of the split often is limited to this political conception, to the illusion that danger may be abolished through successful diplomatic negotiations or by achieving a balance of armed forces. The truth is that the split is a much profounder and a more alienating one, that the rifts are more than one can see at first glance. This deep manifold split bears the danger of manifold disaster for all of us, in accordance with the ancient truth that a Kingdom – in this case, our Earth – divided against itself cannot stand.

'The Fruit of Tribulation' - A Sermon on Holy Hieromartyr Hilarion (Troitsky)

This sermon is a prophetic and sobering word for our generation, as we face as yet unimaginable sufferings.   I found great consolation in this. I pray you do also.  Let us keep this word as a reminder in front of us as we press forward...

More on Hieromartyr Hilarion

• Brief Life of Hieromartyr Hilarion (OCA)
• Life of Hieromartyr Hilarion (Russian Orthodox Church)
• The Unity of the Church, by Hieromartyr Hilarion Troitsky
• Christianity or the Church?, by Hieromartyr Hilarion Troitsky

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"The tribulation itself and our overcoming it brings us the greatest fruit.

The tribulation itself gives us a sign, wisdom, an understanding of God’s ways,

and the strength of spirit to endure."

S. Ivleva. Holy Hieromartyr Hilarion on Solovki.

by Archimandrite Tikhon (Shevkunov) - Pravoslavie.ru
July 24, 2013

Today, at the Liturgy for the commemoration of the uncovering of the relics of Holy Hieromartyr Hilarion (Troitsky) and Equal-to-the-Apostles Princess Olga, Archimandrite Tikhon, the abbot of Sretensky Monastery, gave a sermon on the Gospel reading. In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Today we commemorate the uncovering of the relics of our heavenly protector, Holy Hieromartyr Hilarion (Troitsky). The Gospel reading for today (Mt. 12:38–45) is about how the people came to their teacher and demanded a sign from the heavens—a sign as pay for their faith in God. “We would see a sign from thee” and we will believe, they said. However, Christ did not accept that plan. He said, An evil and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign; and there shall no sign be given to it, but the sign of the prophet Jonas. So, what is that sign? It is the sign of overcoming tribulations and understanding the meaning of trials, suffering, and the cross. The prophet Jonah received great mercy from God—Divine wisdom—but not before he had been cast into tribulation, and through this tribulation he received the gift that he had requested: wisdom, eternal life—a foretaste of eternal life. Thus did our Lord Jesus Christ say. So should you also be emulating this example. He Himself emulated His own servant Jonah, who was once unwise but later became a God-seer and prophet, when He said, so shall the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. He would have to endure mockery and death, and all those tribulations that we are talking about today. There is no other path to the knowledge of God, and there is no other path to the knowledge of eternal life, other than this path. Why? Because it is God’s will. A Christian (and we are now talking about Christians) should through their own life experience be cast out of this world, oppose this world, so that having rejected the world he might have the opportunity to receive eternal life; to have the opportunity to receive a higher understanding of the eternal ways of God. We have to reject the temporary in order to receive the eternal. During St. Hilarion’s time, probably many were saying, “Such tribulations! Where can we find the strength to have faith?” These were the times just after the Revolution—times of terrible trials. But in order to preserve their faith they may have said, “Give us a sign, if to have something to grab onto.” But for all times and for all peoples, the Savior’s words have resounded about how when we ask for a sign, we become a part of that evil and adulterous generation. The tribulation itself and our overcoming it brings us the greatest fruit. The tribulation itself gives us a sign, wisdom, an understanding of God’s ways, and the strength of spirit to endure.

Elder Porphyrios on Facing Islam

This is essential spiritual counsel especially for all of us who confront Islam. Another way to think of it is to consider that we are treating a poison, and we must not become infected with it ourselves.

May the Holy Trinity bless us in this work . . .

Correcting, Not Condemning, Evil

MYSTAGOGY

By Elder Porphyrios of Kapsokalyva

Our purpose is not to condemn evil, but to correct it. With condemnation people can get lost, with understanding and assistance they will be saved.

Evil begins from bad thoughts.

When you are bitter and indignant, even just with your thoughts, you spoil a spiritual atmosphere. You prevent the Holy Spirit from acting and allow the devil to increase the evil.

You should always pray, love and forgive, driving out of yourself every evil thought.

PRISM: Has Tyranny Triumphed in America?

The NY Times editorial board, after the revelation of the NSA's collection of phone data from millions of Verizon customers daily, slammed the Obama Administration as having "lost all credibility."

The NY Times' withering assault on Obama was apparently before the revelation that all the cellular and telecom companies were having to provide such data to the government, and it was certainly before this evening's screaming internet headlines about PRISM, the top-top-secret government internet server harvesting program implicating nine or more major internet companies including Microsoft, Google, Apple and AOL (many of whom are already denying that the government has direct access to their servers — much more to play out yet here).

According to the Washington Post article which broke the story, two senators whose clearance gave them classified knowledge of the system, were unable to speak of it openly:

Sens. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) and Mark Udall (D-Colo.), who had classified knowledge of the program as members of the Senate Intelligence Committee, were unable to speak of it when they warned in a Dec. 27, 2012, floor debate that the FISA Amendments Act had what both of them called a “back-door search loophole” for the content of innocent Americans who were swept up in a search for someone else.

Is this not one of everyone's worst fears about our ever more intrusive, powerful, bullying and sinister government? The past several weeks have seen wave after wave of shocking scandals crash upon the generally accepting American public, to the point where we can glimpse the monster of tyranny behind the slipping mask of Uncle Sam.

• Benghazi Cover-up
• IRS intimidation of Conservative groups
• AP phone records scandal
• James Rosen of Fox News treated as a conspirator for doing his job as a reporter
• Wiretapping of members of Congress - Holder refuses to deny
• NSA harvesting data on billions of U.S. citizens' phone calls every day
• PRISM: total surveillance of all Americans who are in any way on the grid

Even the author of the Patriot Act Rep. James Sensenbrenner, R-Wis, stated the NSA collection of phone data was never the intent of the law. But with the temptation of power in government, this is what happens. And the law will never be repealed, it will only be expanded as technology for surveillance improves. This is the future. This is our future.

Late last night, in an extraordinary statement, the Director of National Intelligence condemned the disclosure of data harvesting procedures, not the procedures themselves:

Director of National Intelligence James Clapper called the disclosure of an Internet surveillance program "reprehensible" and said it risks Americans' security... "The unauthorized disclosure of a top secret U.S. court document threatens potentially long-lasting and irreversible harm to our ability to identify and respond to the many threats facing our nation," Clapper said in an unusual late-night statement.

This is precisely the "newspeak" of a 1984-style, Orwellian totalitarian regime which is applying Soviet control principles to a pacified populace sedated and distracted by comforts, gadgets, and a sham pop culture that rots the brain.