Interview With the Catholicos

His Holiness Karekin II, the Catholicos, or pope, of the Armenian Apostolic Church, began a three-week pontifical visit to California on Tuesday. In an interview this week with Times religion writer Larry B. Stammer, Karekin, 62, spoke about the threat of secularism, cultural issues for Armenian Americans, and the possibility of reunification with the other major Armenian Orthodox body, the Armenian Church of North America.

Here are some excerpts from the interview:

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Question: Are there problems that confront young parishioners that are unique or more acute here? I’m thinking in terms of materialism or the secular society intruding upon the spiritual life.

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Answer: That is one of my continuous concerns in the last few years--the growth to extreme degrees of the secularizing tendency in the world. Now young people are naturally affected by this movement and I find it quite normal. . . . In this world the secular aspects of our life are quite logical. We do not live somewhere between here and the heavens, but we live here on this Earth. I consider, theologically speaking, the world being part of God’s creation and therefore the world is for men and women. . . . What I am not finding so healthy is that there is now a tendency of absolutizing the worldliness, the secular concept of life--that life is nothing else or nothing more than being conditioned by the criteria of time and space on this world. . . . I am concerned with the absence of God-consciousness. . . .

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Q How does the church in this post-modern age speak to people?

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A To put it simply as I can, the church is saying to all the people, young and old, the one clear message, namely that God became man for the sake of man and the world. . . . The church is saying to the people: You cannot be yourselves in your truest and highest and most authentic image without having in you the spark of God’s presence, because you are created with that image of God. Therefore, this (Christmastime) is a time of cleansing of that image from the spots of extreme worldliness and sinfulness in which we human beings are so often tempted to become victims. Christmas for me is the mirror of God in which we look once more to find ourselves, and that mirror is such a mirror in which we cannot deceive ourselves. We cannot see our image distorted because the image is above our capacity of manipulation. . . .

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Q Do you see the church universal, not only the Armenian Apostolic Church, as successfully communicating that (message)?

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A I must confess, not sufficiently. There are, of course, attempts which I value very much. But we also, sometimes in the church, have become part of that secular interpretation of life of the Christmas message. Many of our parishioners, including clergy and also those more directly involved in the church, are very much taken up with the worldly aspects of the celebration. But now I must add that there are signs of a renewal.

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Q America has the reputation--perhaps sometimes more myth than real--of being the great melting pot. Some people think a better metaphor would be salad bowl, in that people maintain their distinctive cultural identities while still being part of a whole. Is it a concern of yours that as Armenian Americans are assimilated into the majority culture, that some of the old ways and rich heritage will be lost?

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A First of all, I don’t like either of the terms--melting pot or salad bowl. I like a more poetic word: mosaic. A mosaic is a colorful picture in which all colors are maintained, but the colors do not speak for themselves. The colors speak in their relationship with one another in what we call in the artistic world an aesthetic understanding, the harmony. Here you have the harmony. . . . That is Americanism--the sense of belonging to an entity without which all the communities would lose their real strength and power. . . . We have had always in our history a diaspora but not to this extent. Therefore, sharing our identify with another identity is part of our historical experience and it has not been detrimental to us when it has been maintained in the right perspective. . . . I would say that (in) America . . . our Armenian people . . . have their own special color. I don’t know how valuable that is. That is up to the American nation to judge. But personally I feel that it is like playing the part of the flute in the orchestra of American life.

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Q You mentioned the diaspora. Do you see now with the collapse of the Soviet Union and the beginnings of independence on the part of the former Soviet republics that the diaspora can be reversed, that people may return to their homelands?

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A I feel that with the new conditions in Armenia, with the hardest conditions that have been created since Armenia proclaimed its independence, these conditions are not conducive for the Armenians in the diaspora to return or to be repatriated to their motherland. But more important than that--and I insist on this--the Armenians in the diaspora . . . have been so much integrated into the life of their new countries that humanly speaking, psychologically speaking, economically speaking, practically speaking, I don’t see that it would be such an easy movement for most of them to think of repatriation.

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Q What are the prospects within the two branches of the Armenian Church of reunification of the two administrative bodies, which already share one liturgy and one theology?

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A I wouldn’t speak at this stage of reunification, but close rapprochement, unreserved collaboration and a process of association in which the oneness of faith, liturgy and the spiritual unity are given concrete expression. Administrative unification is a difficult process. I am not saying impossible, but difficult, given the circumstances of our historical development on the one hand and the present-day uncertainties in our Armenian life and unresolved problems yet within our motherland and also the diaspora. I would like to add at the same time that the last five years have given us greater hope for accelerated and enlarged extensive collaboration. . . .

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Q What do you think of the decision by the Vatican and the state of Israel to establish full diplomatic relations? What meaning does it have for the rest of the Middle East?

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A It surely is an important event that will affect, to a certain extent, the whole area, including the Christian churches. But this is a beginning. It is not yet a final act as I understand it. We look forward to seeing how the Vatican will maintain the balance between its relationships with Israel and its relationships with the Arab world. . . . I felt some kind of uneasiness among the Muslims. But if it is rightly interpreted and rightly conducted in the future I think it may have also something that can be a benefit to the whole area--to the Jews, Muslims and Christians.