Church ‘Coexists’ With Communism in Soviet Armenia

The Armenian Apostolic Church is surviving in a Soviet republic where atheism has been official doctrine for 65 years.

The church and the Communist Party seem to recognize each other’s power and practice what an Armenian spiritual leader has termed “peaceful coexistence.”

Christian missionaries began coming to Armenia in the 1st Century, according to traditional lore, and the main church here was completed in AD 303, two years after Armenia became the first country to adopt Christianity as a state religion. But in Soviet Armenia, maintaining the church sometimes has been an uphill fight.

In Moscow recently, the Central Committee of the Communist Party scolded party leaders in Armenia for “serious shortcomings” in anti-religious indoctrination.

Christianity ‘in Our Blood’

“Christianity is completely intertwined with the history of our nation,” Bishop Nerses Bozabalian said in an interview. “Somehow, it’s in our blood and bones.”

The state forbids religious instruction of young people, and the number of working churches and monasteries in Armenia has been reduced to 38. In the capital city of Yerevan, with nearly 1.2 million people, there are only four churches conducting worship services. So a city with a third of the population has only an eighth of the Armenian Apostolic churches.

Before the establishment of Soviet power in 1920, there were nearly 1,500 such churches in the Soviet Union, concentrated for the most part in Armenia.

“Officially, there is not any hindrance to those wanting to practice their religion,” Bozabalian said, emphasizing the word officially. The bishop, dressed in a plain beige robe and sandals, said there is a seminary at Echmiadzin where 40 future priests are being trained, enough to replace those who retire or die.

Church Schools Banned

“Of course there are no church schools,” he said, referring to the Soviet Union’s ban on formal religious instruction of the young. “Christian education of children is the duty of the parents, mainly.”

Even so, the bishop said, well over 50% of newborn babies are baptized in churches and an unknown number of others are christened in home ceremonies.

About the same percentage of marriages are performed in the church, he said, adding that such weddings are “increasing tremendously lately.” Soviet law requires a civil ceremony for marriages; a church wedding is optional.

Churches were filled last Easter, the bishop said, and pilgrimages sometimes draw as many as 30,000 believers to Echmiadzin Cathedral.

Soviet officials said statistics on church membership are not kept, as this is considered a private matter.

Bibles Readily Available

The church has a printing press and this allows it to print 20,000 copies of the Bible at a time in modern Armenian, the bishop said. Members of other faiths elsewhere in the Soviet Union have frequently complained that it is extremely difficult to obtain a Bible.

Western observers have said there is more tolerance for religious practices in Armenia than in other parts of the Soviet Union. Bozabalian described the church’s relations with the Communist government as “smooth.”

From Moscow’s viewpoint, the church is a vital link in contacts with 2 million Armenians living abroad, about 600,000 of them in the United States and about 100,000 in the Los Angeles area (although not all Americans of Armenian heritage have remained with the apostolic church).

“The church played a unifying role in our history and still plays that role for overseas Armenians,” said Antranig Martirossian, first vice president of a committee for cultural relations with Armenians abroad.

Church Has Prospered

In Soviet Armenia, he noted pointedly, the state has replaced the church in preserving the Armenian language and culture as well as providing education.

There have been no diatribes against the Armenian priests or the church itself in the party-run press. And the church has prospered in material ways, at least, since the election of Vozgen I as the Catholicos, or spiritual leader, in 1954.

The Romanian-born Vozgen has raised millions of rubles to renovate ancient church buildings, some of them more than 1,000 years old. Since his elevation, the Echmiadzin Cathedral has been redecorated, with a chandelier from Czechoslavakia and an altar of Italian onyx embellishing the cone-topped building that is nearly 17 centuries old.

Acolytes proudly display a gold cross studded with diamonds and other precious stones, a gift from Armenians living in France. It is kept in a safe locked with two keys and is regarded as priceless. A gold version of the Armenian alphabet, also flecked with diamonds, rests in an adjoining safe. It was a gift from Vozgen to the church.

Vozgen’s residence is filled with Oriental rugs, marble staircases and a spectacular tapestry of St. George slaying the dragon, a gift from Armenians in India.

$600,000 for Museum

Alex Nanoogian, a wealthy Detroit industrialist, donated $600,000 for a museum to house church relics. It was built with red tuff stone and semicircular arches that are traditional in Armenia.

Despite the glitter of Echmiadzin, most Armenian churches are plain, with only a single painting on the altar and none of the icons found in Russian Orthodox churches. Instead, intricate crosses carved from stone have been preserved as symbols of eternity.

In the villages, animal sacrifices are still common, recalling Old Testament scenes. The meat is divided for a feast.

The origins of Christianity here are lost in legend, but the faith survived centuries of oppression by pagan and Muslim conquerors and the lack of a national homeland.

“Somehow the nation was kept together by the church,” Bozabalian said.

Immediately after the Soviet Union incorporated the Armenian republic in 1920 there were long periods when the office of spiritual leader was kept vacant. Now, however, an accommodation has been reached.

“We may be Communists, but we are also Armenians,” one official said.