ARMENIAN EVANGELICAL CHURCH TO CELEBRATE THE 160-TH ANNIVERSARY

Armenpress
Sept 13 2006

YEREVAN, SEPTEMBER 13, ARMENPRESS: The Armenian Evangelical Church will
convene a four-day conference in Yerevan on September 14 to mark the
160-th anniversary of its foundation. Speaking to a news conference
today in Yerevan senior ministers of the Armenian Evangelical Church
from Americas, Europe and the Middle East and Rene Levonian, the head
of the World Armenian Evangelical Church Council and president of the
Armenian Evangelical Association, said there are 100,000 Armenians
in the world who follow the Evangelical Church. He said they have
150 churches across the globe.

Representatives from 22 countries have arrived in Yerevan to
participate in the gathering. They are expected to be received by
president Robert Kocharian.

The Armenian Evangelical Church was established in 1846 in Istanbul,
Turkey by a group of Armenian intellectuals advocating a deeper study
of the Bible, but a strong retaliation from the Armenian Patriarchate
of Istanbul and eventual excommunication of the reformists, the latter
were forced to organize themselves into a separate religious community,
the Protestant Millet (millet means ‘people’ in Turkish).

This separation led to the formation of the Armenian Evangelical
Church in 1846.