PROVIDENCE, R.I.—Leave it to someone of Greek descent to lobby hard and long for Armenian women.
But Joanna (Gallas) Baghsarian wouldn’t have it any other way.
Born to Greek parents and Armenian in marriage, Baghsarian has been making the rounds in response to Aram Vehapar’s pontifical blessing in this the Year of the Armenian Woman.
As the year winds down, not so with Baghsarian. She has promoted her role at every interval, past, present, and future. She comes by her instincts naturally as the wife and Yeretsgin to Rev. Archpriest Gomidas Baghsarian, pastor of St. Vartanantz Armenian Church.
Prior to that, she served the Armenian Prelacy in New York City as director of Christian education—a role she continued when Der Gomidas pastored St. Gregory Church in North Andover, Mass.
Her 2006 book Agape, a collection of inspirational short stories written during her husband’s 16th year of ministry, motivated the Armenian community. Agape is the Greek word for love.
“I’m here to heighten the awareness that women, as mothers, grandmothers, and educators, have as an important role in the Christian character development of their children,” she says. “We have a story to tell, a heritage to pass on, and an attitude toward life to communicate.”
On this day, she addressed a luncheon at St. Gregory Church. For Yeretsgin Joanna, it was a trip back to her beloved parish where she flexed her wings as a pastor’s wife.
She speaks of Eve and Mary from Biblical times, then moves forward to Armenian history, recanting the lives of Queen Ashkhen and Princess Khosrovitookht, wife and sister of King Drtad. With the conversion to Christianity, special mention is given to the teachings of Sts. Gayane and Hripsime.
“These remarkable Armenian women will be remembered for taking immediate action at critical times in Armenian history,” she brought out. “The Armenian mother is the weaver of princess handiwork called ‘family.’ Teach your children the Armenian prayers and read them the stories.”
Yeretsgin Joanna tends to be a visionary when it comes to educating schoolchildren and doing what’s best for the Armenian community. She can be a relentless worker for the cause of her church, not that she’s forgotten her Greek heritage any.
If anything, she balances both sides to find life’s common denominator, which all bodes well with the people she touches.
“The world is in crisis,” she maintains. “All one needs to do is turn on the TV news or pick up the newspaper. Sunday School is no exception. We must return to the basis. The church and home are the only institutions our young people can turn to for life-changing answers.”
Yeretsgin is quick to admit that women are the backbone of the Armenian Church. She says many go unnoticed and unrecognized, yet they continue to work quietly, faithfully, and selflessly in the life and mission of the church.
“Many acts of kindness receive no recognition or earthy reward,” she says. “Only eternity will fully reveal what they have done here.”
Yeretsgin implored other women to take a positive role in the Armenian Church.
“We have a story to tell, a heritage to pass onto our young, and an attitude to communicate,” she concluded. “Armenian women must internalize the supreme values and authentic traditions of our church and nation.”
Yeretsgin Joanna was born and raised in Reading, Pa. and is a third generation Greek-American. A graduate of St. Basil’s Teachers’ College (now Hellenic College in Brookline, Mass.), she also studied at the Arsakion Teachers’ College in Athens, Greece. She is the mother of two children and three grandchildren.
Tom Vartabedian
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Armenians would have been better off if they had stayed pagan—we had our gods long before the Christians came…that being said if more people, including armenians, thought for themselves rather than listen to priests, we’d be a lot better off…and the community builds useless churches instead of cutting edge schools, museums and cultural centers…
Geez Chris. Isn’t this a little too sacriligious? I mean for us as Armenians who introduced Christianity to the world, I consider that our greatest accomplishment. We fought at Vartanantz to escape the throes of Paganism. And need I remind you that it’s the church which has served as the glue for the Armenian Nation over these 1700 years. I would expect nothing less than an open apology to our Christian population!!! Tom Vartabedian
I take your words with a pinch of Araratian salt.
But just to be clear, we didn’t introduce Christianity to anybody. St Thaddeus and company were from EDESSA, they spoke Aramaic for Pete’s sake and if anyone introduced Christianity it was Jesus who was a Jew and not an Armenian an the apostles who were ALL Syriac or Greek i believe.
Also Tom you realize that you can be Armenian and an atheist or a Jew or Buddhist, right?
Second, I know nothing about the church holding anything together. I DO know that religious millets were imposed on us by whom? The Otoman Turks, thank you very much.
Thirdly, Armenians have not a single cultural institution in this country worth showing anyone else–why? becauise we keep building churches that no one cares about anymore save for the most nationalistic and papist segments of our community.
Also we did not as the Armenian church constantly tries to indoctrinate us fight at Vartanantz to excape the The weekly should publish Shahnur, Ara Baliaozian and Marc Nichanian….Armenian thinkers who understand what is at stake…or we can all go have SHISH KEBAB at the local church picnic and talk about how great our civilization is because we think that we introduced Christianity to the world!
And when was the last time an Armenian priest-admitting one has to embrace their presence-even entered onto the center of the American religious debate in this country?? Sorry for the strong words….but you should know that these sentiments are shared by more than a few of us….
The greatest blessing we have received from the Lord is the gift of survival. How else can you explain the presence of Armenia and Armenians ; given our history of constant upheaval and domination. Our peers were the Babylonians and others great civilization; yet we survived and constantly regenerated. There is only one answer.
Stepan-
To name but a few peoples that have been persecuted and survived: Th eirish, the Welsh, the Scots, the Jews and the Greeks not to mention the Indians, Chinese, Japanese, Native Americans… It has nothing to do with religion per se.
I agree with Christopher.
By open apology you must mean another donation? LOL.
I am sad to hear such faithless views. I am not referring to the church, but rather to our faith. Our faith reflects our relationship with Christ the Lord and has and will sustain us. The history of the Armenian people since our embrace of Christianity has been an inseparable linkage of faith and heritage. What of Avarayr? Why was the alphabet invented? What did our people do when they relocated to foreign lands? A pure secular Armenian community is empty and shallow. Certainity diverse thougth exists, but it is enabled by a nuturing faith based culture. May God Bless our all our people.
It is futile to argue against the reality of the forced conversion of Pagan (Arevortik) and Pauline Armenians into Gregorian Christianity. You can imagine a non Armenian (Krikor Lousavoritch) overpowering an Armenian king and forcing his belief system on Armenian nation. We can always go back in our history and remind ourselves of the atrocities that the early Armenian church committed against Armenian people, not to mention the taxes it forced upon other Armenian Christian communities that did not follow the Gregorian school. Still, it will not change the fact that the big majority of Armenians consider themselves Christians and it is part of our identity.
Throughout our history the Armenian Church claims that it is the sole entity that kept our nation together, preserving our culture and our identity. On the contrary, the Armenian people kept the church and the clergy alive by direct financial and moral support. All the churches and the monasteries that exist today are built by the taxation of the Armenian nation. In terms of preserving our identity, to some extent they can claim that. On the other hand, the church seems to ignore its responsibility in destroying pre-Christian Armenian culture.
Recently there was the grand opening of “Azkayin Arachnortaran” in Southern California; the cost of the construction exceeded millions of dollars. I had the chance to visit the church; it was huge with marble floors and surveillance cameras inside the church where the (Sourp Badarak) takes place. That was the first time that I have witnessed surveillance cameras inside a church.
My concern is, instead of focusing our efforts on raising funds to support Armenian families who cannot afford sending their children to Armenian schools, we are shifting our efforts to sustain and maintain a luxurious church. Do we need more churches in our communities?
In regards to Avarayr or Vartants Baderazm, the Persian records paint the event in a different way, even our church possess scrolls that tells a quite different story about Vartan. I will not go into details of the story out of concern not to offend my fellow Armenians. Katch Vartan is regarded as a national hero, and I believe it should remain that way. But Tom, if you wish to know the other side of Avarayr, you can ask the Hayr Sourp in your church and hopefully he will provide you with some facts.
Wow… and you people who openly disgrace our religion by stating such comments are obviously not ashamed of yourselves….
We all know that the world is not perfect.. money is spent on some things that is not necessary and yes including building churches..but to come here and make mockery out of our religion, you are not doing anyone a favor.. I don’t respect people openly put down their own religion just because they do not agree with how things are done. I am happy that you think like that but we are Christians and we will be faithful to our religion…and I do not appreciate anyone belittling our faith..
God Bless and forgive those who see our religion as unimportant.. the religion that is one of the ancient and powerful religions of the world..
I for one if ever I go to our church I go for the main reason of being in touch with my Armenianness, roots & my ancestors of thousands of years.
As Der Vartan Kassabian, the late pastor of St. Gregory Armenian Apostolic Church in North Andover, MA was known to say,
“I’d rather be a believer and find out I was wrong than a non-believer and find out I was was right”.
Tonight, I will send up a prayer for all of you who question God.
Der Vartan served his nation as a member of the Armenian Revulotionary Federation and as a member of the clergy.
He was an educated and loved the arts.
We can be all of these things, but they all mean nothing if you don’t have faith.
Gayane-
You must be kidding me? It sounds to me like we are living in the 11th century. My faith??? Faith and organized religion are 2 completely different things. I can have faith in myself, in my people (whom I love) and even in the ways of the universe w/o spending 2 million dollars to build a church.
And I certainly do not need your blessings or your supposed God’s who stood around and watched , what was it 1.5 million Armenians get starved deported and raped in 1915?
I have been to Armenia 4 times, volunteered for countless organizations, donated money and am translating not one but four books from Armenian or about Armenian culture from French. A culture ie kept alive through language and customs (food,song, dance), not just organized religion that can also be a part of it. If our priests were say half as knowledgeable or educated as episcopalians or perhaps reformed Jewish rabbis or if we also took care of the rest of our culture with such intensity, then the church would bother me a lot less, if you must know.
I also don’t begrudge you or anyone else their faith.
What I cannot tolerate is the impoverished mentality that donates all our resources to churches while we have second rate schools, and no cultural centers or museums. This is how you KILL a culture…look at the Jews: every university in America has a Hillel, there are hundreds of Jewish cultural centers. That’s why they are a shining cultural example in America and why we have accomplished so little, except making money.
And as far as conversions are concerned, of course I can blame the Edessan church fathers 1700 years later: you cannot complain about Turks massacring your ancestors 100 years ago but say “oh it’s ok that 300 years ago they slaughtered all our priests and all those who resisted” and then change the true history of everything from those forced conversions to Vartanantz.
As for what the church is doing INSIDE Hayasdan God bless THEM they are worse than the maffia-even Raffi Hovanessian has publicly asked them to get out of public life and keep separation church ans state –or do you not believe in separation of church and state, Gayane? Perhaps theocracy like Iran’s would suit us better? That way in Hayasdan we could have a theocracy and a dictatorship together…since as we all know in the diaspora 3 or 4 organizations more or less dictate 99% of our activities w/o any vote and w/o ever asking Armenians themselves what they think-the Church being one of these. That way our entire Armenian world could be one large culturally impoverished, church going dictatorship.
Gayane, before making condescending remarks towards the people that you disagree with, try to do some home work in the subject.
Read my post again, I never disgraced your faith (Christianity); my comment was about the church as an institution. I am impressed in your passionate defense of our church. I was wondering, Gaysane, what do you see when you go to church; I am referring about the reach symbolism that we have in the church. Can you read the language of the symbols, do you understand the “Holy Architecture”, can you read between the lines when you listen to Hymns, what do you see when a Badarak is being conducted on the Khoran? Have you bothered yourself in looking into the spiritual side of the religion other than the theatrics that the church presents to the devout public? So, stop jumping the gun every time people try to have open discussion about the Armenian Church.
“Wow… and you people who openly disgrace our religion by stating such comments are obviously not ashamed of yourselves….”
As I said I, did not disgrace your or anybodies religion, and they were not comments, they are facts. As far as I know, you should be ashamed of yourself for making ignorant accusations to people that are having civilized discussions.
“I don’t respect people openly put down their own religion just because they do not agree with how things are done.”
I am not putting down my religion, I am criticizing the past deeds of the church, and if you will disrespect people that you do not agree with; well it says a lot about you.
On another note, you persistently criticize the current Armenian government institutions and the President, to which I might agree or disagree with you. But when another Armenian institution gets criticized in this case the church, you get your guns up and start shooting people that disagree with you. Don’t you think this sounds hypocritical?
Friends, fellow Armenians and countrymen, even dissenters, let’s get a grip on ourselves. Nobody says you have to agree with anything I write. A harmless story about an Armenian yeretskin can generate this much interest is certainly compelling. The article wasn’t even about a church but the year of the Armenian Woman — and nobody even commented about that. I ponder the question, “What would our race be without the Armenian Church to give it sustenance? Where would we be without a God? To answer this question, just go to Armenia and see the hundreds of churches being preserved and the people who attend them. One is all you need. Go to Etchmiadzin and see the thousands there each day. Put a little God into your life. He can work miracles and make believers of us all. Tom Vartabedian
As Der Vartan Kassabian, the late pastor of St. Gregory Armenian Apostolic Church in North Andover, MA, was known to say, “I’d rather be a believer and find out I was wrong than a non-believer and find out I was right.” Tonight, I will send up a prayer for all of you who question God. Der Vartan served his nation as a beloved clergyman, a devoted husband and father, a member of the Armenian Revolutionary Federation and was commander of the Knights of Vartan when he was called to God. He was an educated man and loved the arts. We can be all of these things but they all mean nothing if we don’t have faith.
God bless Joanna, who has embraced our people as her own and inspires us with her faith. Also bravo to Tom who refuses to get negative! And Tom is right. Don’t we have anything to say about the role of women in our community? Or do we just take for granted that they will always be there to make the pilaf for the picnics and teach Sunday school, and keep the family gatherings going just like medz mairig…
What about the behind the scenes support? What about the unnoticed, unacknowledged acts of charity and volunteerism? What about the sweet voices in our choirs? What about transmitting culture and language to the next generation (hopefully more enlightened about gender roles!). What about the artists, the dancers, the teachers, the thinkers, the leaders… With the news of the prevalence of domestic abuse in the RA, its a good time to ponder what place we see our women taking in our society, to examine the origins of our attitudes.
Put a little God in my life, Tom? I’d rather put a little sugar in my coffee.
Again, I can’t help but wonder where God was when my grandparents were getting raped and murdered by Turks? I mean really give me a huge break on the God thing, ok? Lived 40 years w/o him or her and plan to live another 40 more just the same…oh wait undoubdtedly I will burn in hell after i die? :)
Steve’s attitude is honest, but he should know that he is referring to Pascal, a French philosopher who first penned the “I might as well believe just in case.”
Tom you should believe in yourself, rock n’roll and German technology, not God.
As for Armenian women I hope Yegeghetsin stops a few of the cro magnons in Hayasdan from beating their women as they are apparently wont of doing. Ah, traditional Armenian families…
Now if Yeretsgin really wants to make change,why not crusade to let women become priests? I went to a lecture last week at the Village temple by a lesbian Rabbi about the tradition of female commentary in Midrash and how to incorporate female perspectives and presences into the Jewish clergy…now THAT I thought was interesting and SHE was actually changing things. Jews got balls. I’m still waiting for ours to grow.
Debate and exchange of opinions is good Tom. that’s why we have 20 commentaries. Let’s ask some real questions: i.e women in the Hye clergy; the role of lesbians in Armenian society and church, gay marriage.
Good grief! Yeretsgin Joanna said “I’m here to heighten the awareness that women, as mothers, grandmothers, and educators, have as an important role in the Christian character development of their children”. I’m stymied about the reason for any controversy here. We all know our history (well… actually most do not) but that aside what happened millennia ago is of no bearing on this. The existence of a number of important organizations and posative developments in our communities are due to the quiet leadership, vision, and toil of Armenian women who work without boistrous self-congratulatory rhetoric. And the accomplishments of the male membors of our community would not have occurred without the support of women in the background.
So let’s change the topic and talk about solving real problems.
For some reason, some of you have strayed enormously from the focus of Tom’s article….it’s as if there was a need to vent on the topic of the Armenian church, and this article was chosen as a means to do so. Instead of Tom pointing out, as others have, what is NOT being accomplished in the Armenian community, Tom’s article compliments the task Yn. Joanna has undertaken in educating us all on the vital role of Armenian women throughout our history—and I’m sure enlightened Armenian men would recognize and validate the truth of her words.
Perhaps those who have been venting on the church here, instead of commenting on the article, need to educate themselves a bit more on the necessity for all sorts of “Armenianism,” not just the areas of being an Armenian they themselves are focused upon…..All areas of our Armenian nation need to learn to work together for the future of our children!