In Sight
Why is Our Church Silent on Women’s Issues?
Armenians are a proud but at times myopic people. We love to focus on the foundations of our culture, our faith, our food, our resiliency, our values, but we have trouble with our problems. The issue is not that we have challenges. Everyone on this earth is confronted with strengths and weaknesses. The question is whether we choose to manage our shortcomings or let them manage us. We still have the “elephant in the room,” the division in our church after 87 years. Yes, we have made progress,
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Very courageous urgently needed insight to be followed up with concrete steps. This said, the destructive impact of the Soviet Union on our culture at large not least on the comportments of Armenian men should be highlighted and adequately tackled.
Parev Stepan. This kind of bullishness and brutality, is a display of power from one sex to the other. It has NO place in an Armenian household or anywhere else. I believe this rage in physicality of man against woman is a symptom of frustration that emerges after or during heavy alcoholic consumption by the brutalizer. There are various forms of inflicting harm on someone else. Calling Police after the fact may be too late. As a body of intelligent people we need to evaluate the causes of brutality. I put my belief on all forms of alcohol consumption are the cause.
So the question is really, how do you explain to grape growers and wine makers and wheat/rye growers to keep up the good work for the wonderful products but “don’t consume it”.
Grow the stuff, Brew the stuff, Sell the stuff, But don’t drink it!
Takes a powerful individual to avoid consumption.
That is what our mission in our life must be if we want to reach our goals.
Don’t beat up a defenseless persons.
Be sober
You’ll surprise yourself and others.
Take it from a reformed drinker
Alcohol consumption ended July 25, 1975 for me at age 40.
Had I been smarter, I would have never started.
Armen K. Boyajian
This is a timely discussion. As a Fulbright Scholar assigned to the American University of Armenia in 2016, my graduate students and I conducted a quantitative/qualitative study on the status of women across the last three decades. We discovered that girls and women of Armenia not only are not fully embraced in their families and the society at large, but are enduring shameful abuse and diminishing experiences in both settings. Sadly the church is not just silent on this issue. When the necessity of the domestic violence law was being discussed in the media, high ranking clergy participated in public debates and shamelessly confirmed the “traditional” value of women’s subservient role in family and society, ignoring the corrosive effect of domestic violence in the lives of girls’ and women, and the consequent destructive impact on society. It’s time to hold the clergy accountable for what they say and refrain from saying for their own political gains.
Thanks for this timely piece. Our Church condones misogyny, homophobia, and at time seven racism in the most abhorrent ways. Hopefully this will change.
Stephen: let’s be honest–how on Earth can an all-male institution–where to boot many of the priests are celibate and some are closeted homosexuals with all that implies–be expected to rally around women’s rights and fight for true equality. I am not saying that it cannot happen, simply that it is highly unlikely. I have only met Karekin II once in person, but he is known/rumored to be/spoken about as being especially corrupt–so I do not see him taking the lead on much of anything. With regards to “social issues’ the Church just repeats centuries-old outdated maxims and beliefs. It is frustrating. take the Jews, for example. Sure many are orthodox–even more intolerant than our church. But there is also a gay synagogue in NYC and many reformed Jewish female rabbis, for example–we have nothing equivalent in our church. Just a silly schism and a people who cannot even remember that Armenian Catholics (I am one technically), Protestants and Presbyterians also exist.
Great article Stepan. However, I don’t have much hope in an institution that doesn’t allow girls over the age of 13 to serve on the altar. If the church has that little regard for girls/women here in the U.S., I don’t see them sticking their necks out for the women of Armenia.