CNEWA One Magazine, May 2007
The Long Road Home
Onnik Krikorian writes how Armenian Catholic monks established their
first school in Armenia
`Five years ago, when I was 75, I thought it was time to rest and pray
in preparation for the last joyous journey to be with our Father in
heaven, but it was not to be,’ said Father Hovsep Behesniryan, a priest
of the Armenian Catholic Mekhitarist Congregation. After serving more
than 64 years in ministries in Venice, Paris, Los Angeles and New York,
`I was called into service once more, this time in Armenia.’
He was sitting in a parlor of the Mekhitarist minor seminary, located in
the Armenian capital city of Yerevan, where the Ethiopian-born priest
supervises the education of those who hope to follow his path. The
seminary opened in October 2004 and is now home to 22 boys, age 13 and
older.
`Every boy who comes here believes God called him,’ said 16-year-old
Narek Tchilingirian, who spent a month at the seminary before deciding
to enter. His mother, Tsovinar, was not surprised. `He always went to
church regularly, and he always took part in religious ceremonies and
youth organizations.’
Father Hovsep’s return to the land of his ancestors has more than
personal significance for the octogenarian. The seminary also marks a
significant step in the homecoming of an Armenian religious community
after centuries in exile.
Father Hovsep’s community was founded by a farsighted Armenian monk,
Mekhitar, who in the early 18th century gathered around him disciples
committed to the intellectual and spiritual renewal of the Armenian
people. Influenced by the work of Catholic religious then active in the
Ottoman Empire, Mekhitar sought to establish a college in
Constantinople, the center of the Ottoman Armenian community. But
Mekhitar’s ideas, which also included his advocacy for the
reestablishment of full communion between the Armenian Apostolic and
Catholic churches, generated hostility.
In 1701, Mekhitar found refuge in Morea, a Greek territory then occupied
by the Venetians, where eventually he established a monastery in the
Benedictine model. After pledging his fidelity to the papacy, Mekhitar
received papal approval for his foundation in 1712. Two years later,
however, Mekhitar and 16 of his disciples were forced to leave their
monastery as the Ottomans overran Morea, flushing out the Venetians and
their allies.
The senate of the Venetian Republic offered the abbot and his displaced
monks Venice’s abandoned island of San Lazzaro, once a leper colony.
Until his death in 1749, Abbot Mekhitar worked tirelessly from his
island monastery, introducing grammars for classical and vernacular
Armenian, compiling an Armenian dictionary and composing commentaries on
various books of the Bible.
Though separated from their homeland, Mekhitar’s spiritual sons,
commonly called Mekhitarists, played a vital role in enlivening Armenian
cultural life. From their houses in Venice and Vienna, they translated
into Armenian works from the Classical era, early church writings,
Renaissance literature and contemporary science and geography texts.
Their endeavors, which also included the establishment of publishing
houses, ensured that Armenians would not be cut off from the advancing
world.
The Mekhitarists also studied ancient Armenian literature, amassing rare
collections and recovering for scholars works long considered lost,
including letters of St. Ignatius of Antioch that survived only in
translation.
`If a culture is isolated from the world it risks dying,’ Father Hovsep
said.
`The Mekhitarist Fathers brought everything from algebra to astronomy to
the Armenian people. Our culture was strengthened as a result.’
But these successes were accomplished in Mekhitarist houses and schools
of the Armenian diaspora (Aleppo, Beirut, Buenos Aires, Istanbul, Los
Angeles and Paris), far from the nucleus of the Armenian nation – the
sacred Mount Ararat and Holy Etchmiadzin, the home of the Catholicos of
all the Armenians.
After more than 70 years of Communist oppression, isolated communities
of Armenian Catholics resurfaced with the rebirth of an independent
Armenia in 1991. These Catholics, numbering just 220,000 of the nation’s
2.9 million citizens, preserved their faith in bits and pieces; their
clergy had been liquidated by the Communists, their churches padlocked
or torched.
`In 1998, [the late] Catholicos Karekin I invited us to work among
Catholics in the north of the country,’ Father Hovsep said.
`When the catholicos came to San Lazzaro, we asked him what he expected
of us [in Armenia],’ Father Hovsep said. `He told us to continue what
we’ve always done. In our prayer, as well as our monastic life, we have
introduced European culture to Armenians.’
While the monks welcomed the encouragement, they privately expressed
their concern for the lack of Mekhitarists available to take on such an
apostolate – vocations to monastic life had declinedconsiderably.
`We didn’t come here by our own decision,’ Father Hovsep said. `We came
because we were asked to. This is the will of God and we can never work
against that.’
There are only two Mekhitarists in Armenia: Father Hovsep and Archbishop
Vartan Kechichian, who is responsible for the pastoral care of Armenian
Catholics in Eastern Europe. But Father Hovsep works closely with the
Armenian Sisters of the Immaculate Conception and the Armenian Apostolic
Catholicos, Karekin II.
`We haven’t come to proselytize, because we respect the Armenian
Apostolic Church as the church of all Armenians,’ Father Hovsep said.
In 2001, Pope John Paul II marked the third centenary of the community’s
founding by extolling the Mekhitarists’ ecumenical role.
`In the common journey of monastic rediscovery, you will benefit a great
deal from collaborating with your brothers of the Apostolic Armenian
Church,’ the pope said.
`It will be a further example of the `frontier ecumenism’ that
monasticism can achieve if it does not withdraw into isolation or
fundamentalism, but knows how to welcome a brother it meets on the way
in the name of the sincere seeking of the Father’s face.’
Mekhitarist seminarians begin their day at 6 a.m. They pray, study and
work, with few breaks, until 9 p.m. After two years, novices not only
take the vows of poverty, chastity and obedience, but a fourth vow to go
to the missions to teach the faith.
The rigorous education provides students with a sense of purpose
according to those that know them well.
`I knew he would feel better here, because he wasn’t satisfied anywhere
else,’ Mrs. Tchilingirian said of her son, Narek. `He wasn’t sure what
path to take in life. Now, he’s found his place.’
For many would-be Mekhitarists, including novices like Narek, the path
involves not only prayer and study, but entrance into full communion
with the Church of Rome. But unlike those Armenians who join the
Jehovah’s Witnesses or the Mormons, full communion with the Church of
Rome is not perceived as such a stark break with tradition.
`The liturgy is the same,’ Mrs. Tchilingirian said. `It’s the same
religion.’
`When a boy from the Apostolic Church wants to become a Mekhitarist, we
alert the catholicos,’ Father Hovsep said. `But not only is he not
against such a decision, he agrees with it.’
Catholicos Karekin II has offered the Mekhitarists an ancient but
abandoned monastery in Armenia. This is a significant symbolic gesture,
for Armenia’s monasteries historically preserved Armenian culture,
language and spirituality. Sadly, many today stand empty.
In today’s interconnected world, Armenians no longer need to be
introduced to European culture. Armenia boasts a 100 percent literacy
rate; almost any sliver of information is a mouse click away.
`But we do need to keep Armenia alive in terms of its traditions,’ said
Father Hovsep. `We need to preserve and strengthen our language, our
culture and our connection to our origins.
`And we can help Armenians be good Christians. Perhaps this is the most
important work … there are so few priests and monks in Armenia today.’
Onnik Krikorian is a photojournalist based in Armenia.
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