The Ledger Lakeland, Fla
Saturday, October 13, 2007
The lights are on at St. Hagop Armenian Church in
St. Petersburg. Harout Keshishian of Lakeland considers it something
of a miracle.
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Karekin II, the Armenian patriarch, will visit the newly built
St. Hagop Armenian Church in St. Petersburg this weekend for
consecration ceremonies. It is one of only four Armenian churches in
Florida.
Just one year ago, the place where the new sanctuary is nearing
completion held only a small garage-like chapel. The archbishop of the
Eastern Diocese of the Armenian Church in America, visiting the small
congregation from New York, asked Keshishian if he would chair a
committee to build a new church.
"The Armenian community in Tampa Bay is growing, and we couldn’t meet
in the chapel any longer. I didn’t know he would ask to have it built
by this October so it could be consecrated by His Holiness," says
Keshishian with a smile.
"His Holiness" is Karekin II, the Supreme Patriarch and Catholicos of
All Armenians, who is making a monthlong pontifical visit to America
and arrives today in St. Petersburg for two days of ceremonies to
consecrate St. Hagop. Armenian-American families from Polk County, and
dignitaries including Lakeland Mayor Buddy Fletcher, will be present
for the consecration on Sunday and a banquet honoring Karekin.
The church will require a few more months to finish, but thanks to
sacrifices made by Keshishian and other members of the building
committee, it is complete enough for the consecration.
"It is very, very exciting. People are just as happy as can be," he
says.
Keshishian traveled to St. Petersburg several times a week for the
past year, working with the contractor and helping to secure permits.
"We overcame. We agreed to put our personal lives and our businesses
aside, as a commitment to the Armenian community," says Keshishian,
who owns International Gemological Appraisals, a small business in
Lakeland.
Besides time, another obstacle was money.
"We only had $550,000 on hand for a $1.4 million church. We had an
assembly, and a lot of people panicked. But we took pledges, and when
people saw parts of the church being completed, we started getting
donations. Since then, it’s been a blessing," Keshishian says.
St. Hagop (pronounced HAY-gope) is one of four Armenian churches in
Florida and one of 68 parishes in the Eastern United States. It draws
about 150 worshipers each week from Central Florida, most of them
third- and fourth-generation Armenian-Americans. About 10 families
from Polk County go to St. Petersburg each week to attend St. Hagop,
Keshishian says.
Unlike most of the congregation, Keshishian was born in Armenia, while
it was still under control of the Soviet Union, and came to the United
States in 1982. His family moved to Lakeland in 1984 and owned three
Skah Jewelry stores in Florida before selling them about eight years
ago. Services at St. Hagop are conducted in English and Armenian,
even though many of the congregation do not speak the language,
Keshishian says.
"We just got a new pastor, and he is fourth-generation Armenian. He
was born in Massachusetts and didn’t speak one word of Armenian, so he
went to Armenia to study the language," he says.
Many people confuse Armenian culture and language with Greek, even
though they are not the same and the two countries are not near each
other, Keshishian says.
Armenia is a small, mountainous country, about the size of Maryland,
bounded by Turkey on the west, the Republic of Georgia on the north
and Iran on the south. From the 1500s until 1918, it was under the
Ottoman Turkish Empire, and in what is generally considered the 20th
century’s first episode of genocide, as many as 1 million Armenians
died during a forced deportation carried out by the Turks in 1915. The
country was under the Soviet Union from 1920 to 1991, when it declared
its independence.
According to tradition, St. Gregory (or Hagop, in Armenian) the
Illuminator converted Armenian King Tiridates III in 301 A.D., making
Armenia the first Christian nation, predating even the Roman
Empire. The Armenian Church – sometimes known as the Armenian
Apostolic Church – is similar to Eastern Orthodox but has been
independent since the sixth century, due in part to some theological
differences.
Karekin II was elected Catholicos (a title similar to archbishop) in
1999 and is making his second visit to the United States. He arrived
in New York on Oct. 3, and Michael O’Hurley-Pitts, communications
director for the Diocese of the Armenian Church in America, says it is
important for Karekin to minister to Armenians who have been scattered
throughout the world as a result of persecution.
"I was in a room last night, and two people were talking and they
realized they are third cousins. Their grandparents are still living,
but they hadn’t seen one another since the genocide (of 1915). To have
the Catholicos come and bless them is a powerful experience," he says.
St. Hagop was designed to have traditional Armenian architecture and
is modeled on the cathedral of Holy Etchmiadzin, located near the
Armenian capital of Yerevan.
As the church was going up, Keshishian’s father, Garabet Keshishian, a
retired artist, said he wanted it to be as identical as possible to
Holy Etchmiadzin, and that meant importing distinctive stone. He went
to Armenia and arranged for a shipment of bricks made of tufa, a red
basalt stone native to the country.
"It’s a special stone which has been part of Armenian churches since
301. When people saw it, they wept. Everyone took a piece home. This
is going to be the only church in America with red tufa," Keshishian
says.
Using the stone in the construction of the church also will require
specially skilled workers from Armenia, which will delay the
completion of the sanctuary until February. But Keshishian already has
a ceremony in mind to be performed when it is all finished.
"The first christening in the church will be my daughter, Sarah," he
says, beaming.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress
