A STORY OF SURVIVAL: ARMENIANS REMEMBER THOSE SLAIN BY TURKS
By Renee K. Gadoua Staff writer

Religion News Service
The Post-Standard (Syracuse, New York)
Final Edition
November 27, 2007 Tuesday

Richard Roomian’s father left his family in Armenia – then a part of
the Ottoman Turkish Empire – in 1915 to come to America and earn a
living as a tailor.

He settled in Syracuse and soon sent money for his family to flee
oppression from the Turks and join him. His parents never made it.

His mother – Richard Roomian’s grandmother – was killed before she
could board a boat. His father – Roomian’s grandfather – died on a
forced march out of Armenia that left an estimated 150,000 people dead.

"That’s the story of every Armenian. They have immediate relatives
that were killed," said Roomian, a leader in Central New York’s
Armenian community.

A recent failed congressional resolution would have labeled as genocide
the deaths of Roomian’s grandparents and hundreds of thousands of
other Armenians by Turks beginning in 1915.

Roomian says the resolution would have been a cathartic step toward
forgiveness, while opponents say such a resolution was not an
appropriate congressional action. Others pointed out a resolution
could harm U.S. relations with Turkey.

Many scholars view the deaths of 1.5 million Armenians during the
World War I era as the first genocide of the 20th century. Turkey’s
leaders say the deaths occurred during inter-ethnic conflict.

Roomian says it’s important that people understand the Armenians’
story of survival. He was born and grew up in Syracuse, home to an
Armenian community of about 350 families. He now lives in Rochester
and serves as chair of the parish council of St. Paul’s Armenian
Apostolic Church, 310 N. Geddes St., Syracuse.

The church serves as a cultural center for many Central New York
Armenian-Americans.

St. Paul’s is one of 10 Armenian Apostolic churches in New York.

Others operate in Binghamton, Rochester and Niagara Falls. A second
Armenian church in Syracuse, St. John’s, 372 W. Matson Ave., closed
a few years ago.

About 1.3 million Christian Armenians worship in about 110 churches
in the United States, said Michael O’Hurley-Pitts, spokesman for the
Armenian Church headquarters in New York.

The church, a branch of the Oriental Orthodox Christian Church, was
founded at the foot of Mount Ararat in ancient Armenia, which is now
in Turkey. Mount Ararat is believed to be where Noah’s ark came to
rest after the biblical flood.

Christianity became the national religion of Armenia in 301 A.D.,
a fact that’s still significant, O’Hurley-Pitts said.

"Armenians’ Christian identity is tied up in their national identity,"
he said.

O’Hurley-Pitts is disappointed the resolution was abandoned.

"If we favor the passage of the resolution, it is because we cannot
pick and choose which crimes against humanity are worth recognizing
and which are not," he said.

At the very least, he said, the proposed resolution raised interest
in Armenian history.

"The Armenian people don’t need an act of Congress to tell them there
are gaping holes in their family trees," he said.

Armenians began arriving in Syracuse about 1894, according to "Like
One Family: The Armenians of Syracuse," a 2000 book by Arpenia
S. Mesrobian, former director of Syracuse University Press.

"Even while the recently arrived immigrants sought to establish
themselves in a new land, their minds and hearts remained with the
families and compatriots they had left behind in a homeland which
most of them would never see again," she wrote in the preface.

That’s how Nevart Apikian, of Syracuse, remembers her youth. Her
father came from Armenia to America about 1910.

She was a charter member of the now-defunct St. John’s Armenian Church
and remembers attending picnics with Syracuse’s Armenians.

"Everybody would talk, and people gave $25 or $50 to $100 for people
who needed it in Armenian organizations," she said.

She said people were passionate about their homeland, but rarely
talked openly about what they experienced.

"You didn’t ask questions," she said. "You got little snippets."

Renee K. Gadoua can be reached at rgadoua@syracuse.com or 470-2203.

To learn more

Learn about the Armenian church:

Read House Resolution 106: Affirmation of the United
States Record on the Armenian Genocide Resolution:
bi ll=hr110-106.

Support for resolution

The National Council of Churches is bucking the conventional wisdom
in Washington by criticizing Congress for shelving a measure that
would label the deaths of thousands of Armenians in 1915 "genocide."

The council and its affiliated humanitarian agency, Church World
Service, approved a resolution at the groups’ annual General Assembly
Nov. 6-8, calling it "unacceptable that the United States has yet to
officially recognize the Genocide of 1915."

The resolution "strongly urges the leadership of the U.S. House of
Representatives to bring forth this legislation before the end of
this Congress." The National Council of Churches, an umbrella group
of 35 mainline Protestant and Orthodox denominations, includes the
U.S. branch of the Armenian Orthodox Church. Armenian Archbishop
Vicken Aykazian is beginning a two-year term as council president.

Speaking "as persons of faith," the National Council of Churches and
Church World Service expressed their "concern that the truth was not
upheld by our elected representatives."