JERUSALEM PATRIARCHATE COMPUTERIZES RECORDS
Arthur Hagopian
AZG Armenian Daily
10/07/2008
Diaspora
The Armenian Patriarchate of Jerusalem has taken steps to computerize
and preserve the genealogical records of community members dating
back over a century and a half, rescuing them from oblivion and the
ravages of time and weather.
The data, spread over more than 220 musty pages of three ancient
"domars" (registers) maintained by the Patriarchate’s scriptorium, was
photographed by one of Jerusalem’s leading artists, Garo Nalbandian.
Patriarchate sources revealed that the pages had become brittle and
in several cases the running ink had made the painstaking handwritten
script almost illegible.
Enshrined on computer CD-ROMs, the registers, which are primarily lists
of the details of the births, marriages and deaths of the Armenian
community of the Old City over the past 170 years, will now be
permanently preserved for posterity within the Patriarchate archives.
The Patriarchate has also acceded to a request by the Kaghakatzi
Armenian Family Tree project, which assisted in the rescue effort,
to have a copy hosted on the project website,
The information will be accessible to members of the Kaghakatzi
community whose forebears appear in the registers.
The Project’s participation in the rescue operation is part of its
efforts to safeguard the history and culture of the members of the
unique Kaghakatzi ("native dwelling") community of the Old City.
These efforts have resulted in the compilation of a database listing
close to a hundred Kaghakatzi clans, covering more than 2400 names.But
only as far back as 1840.
What of those who went before?Armenians have been living in Jerusalem
even before the advent of Christianity – but documents or records
attesting to their presence in the Holy Land around that era are hard
to come by.
Even before Thaddeus and Bartholomew, the two apostles of Jesus
of Nazareth who according to tradition brought Christianity to a
heathen Armenia, a large number of the denizens of that rocky region
had already set up home in Jerusalem, the sleepy village that had
become a distant outpost of the empire carved out by Armenian emperor
Tigranes II some 150 years before the birth of Jesus.
Tigranes invaded Syria and Palestine, extending his empire from the
Caspian Sea to the Mediterranean, and left behind sizeable garrisons
and colonies of Armenians to hold the fort and show the flag.
When in 301 AD King Tiridates adopted Christianity as Armenia’s state
religion, the epoch-making move gave added impetus to an enthusiastic
influx of Armenians eager to chase the lodestone of rejuvenation in
the new faith, in the city of the Christ.
The colonies endured and flourished. Caught up in the zeal of the
new religion, the Armenian pilgrims laid down streets and put up
houses, established churches and monasteries, and created mosaics and
institutions. Out of that exuberance emerged a whole new compound,
claiming over a quarter of the Old City of Jerusalem as its private
enclave.
In the middle of that enclave, the Armenians crafted a magnificent
church within a convent and there established the Holy See of St James,
with Abraham later becoming its first patriarch.
The pilgrims were lavish in their largesse to the church and the
Patriarchate soon became a major repository of Armenian treasures. The
Armenians gave free rein to their creative spirit, giving the city
its first printing press and photographic studio.
For over two millennia, the Patriarchate of St James has held and
added to its variegated treasures, mementos of the caravan of Armenians
who had lived, worked and died in the Old City of Jerusalem.
And during all that time, Patriarchate scribes continued to keep a
running commentary of the lives of the community and the congregation,
tracing their lineage, encrusting their names and memories into its
venerable domars. Although the genealogical records that have been
unearthed so far go back only as far as 1840, there is uncertainty
about the existence of any prior ones.
The current incumbent of the Holy See, Patriarch Torkom Manoogian,
has almost single handedly streamlined the laborious archival system
of the patriarchate of St James, propelling it into the IT age,
but despite all his heroic efforts, there is still much left to do.
His fondest dream is to computerize the whole range of the
Patriarchate’s extensive archives, a job too daunting to even
contemplate at the moment: a researcher could spend a lifetime
delving into the Patriarchate’s paper mountain, and still come short
of sorting everything out.
There are countless numbers of ancient records languishing in one
corner or other of the Patriarchate, but hardly anyone on the
Patriarchate staff can spare the time or effort to research or
catalogue or computerize them.
And few are qualified to undertake the job.
"It is true the patriarchate has more employees than there are
able bodied men and women in the community," Patriarchate sources
say. "But what it requires is someone of the calibre of Archbishop
Norayr Bogharian" (who spent years creating a definitive catalogue of
the thousands of illustrated Armenian manuscripts owned by St James).
In the meantime, the Kaghakatzi Armenian Family Tree project continues
to forge ahead with its mission, adding another batch of names to
the database of genealogical information it has compiled.
The number of names now stands at over 2400. And still counting.
"There are still many gaps left to fill," the organizers say. "We
need more information – we’ve barely scratched the surface. The
Kaghakatzis thrived on custom and tradition, on anecdotes and tall
tales, on escapades and adventure, on songs and jokes. On exquisite
cuisine. On Khoren the Jamgotch’s Sunday call to prayer. Our aim is to
elicit these reminiscences and memories, and preserve them. And out
there among Kaghakatzi descendants, there must still be truckloads
of old photographs, pleading to be brought back to life."
"A-avodyan lov3s e /akovm," Khoren would sing, as he pounded the
cobblestones lining the alleys of the Armenian Quarter. "In the
morning, light has dawned."
If the Kaghakatzi Armenian Family Tree project has its way, that
light will never wane.