It has often been stated that knowledge is freedom. The Armenians were an enslaved people under Turkish rule for centuries in Western Armenia until the period of enlightenment in the mid to late 19th century br
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Stepan: Read with interest your article on Sunday schools. I have been teaching at St James for 40 years. In the beginning we had 400 students. Now we have about 200 registered with the majority in the lower grades. One of the problems as I see it is that most of are families have moved away from Watertown where most children walked to church and families bonded together. In addition the fact that sports teams are allowed to hold practices on Sunday. If the child can not make the practice they are dropped from the team. Another excuse is that the study load makes for studying on Sunday. Sunday school takes a back seat.
Ed…… thank you for your commitment to our children’s education. It is true
remarkable. The problems you identified are real. We must have the will to look for creative solutions. All options must be considered since without success we have a limited future. Thanks.
Great article Stepan. Everyone knows this is a complex problem however all my adult life I’ve been hearing that we need to look at all options and solutions. I grew up in Queens New York, went to school in Boston and for the past 50 years have been in Dallas Texas. I was a teenager when the Holy Martyfs Church was built in Bayside New York and I attended Saint James Church in Watertown while in school and helped in the formation of Saint Sarkis Church in Dallas. For many years I was a Delegate to the national assembly of the Easton Diocese. During one of the Diocese meetings I offered to fund a study about language. Of course instead the diocese did a study about social change. I’ve seen many of my contemporaries in New York drift away from the church and over the past 30 years here in Dallas the same thing is happening. It’s happening all over I Our church service is conducted in the ancient language that few understand. If Saint Gregory the illuminator preached in a ancient language there would be no church today. It is sad that the leaders of our church is both Armenia and Lebanon insist on maintaining the status quo while thousands of young people around the world are being left behind. Watertown Massachusetts has been a beacon for Armenians for over 100 years. Saint James and Saint Stephen’s should be mega churches. Follow the past for 30 years all I have heard that this is a complex problem. Yes it is but there has to be a starting point and language should be a simple one. The church service has to be relevant to the young people
I too am unabashedly committed to stemming the decline of “active engagement” in Church/Community activities. Unfortunately the problem is systemic and not simply a matter of recapturing what we had in our Sunday Schools when the post Geocide immigrants first started creating “Armenian Communities.” That was then and this is now. Frankly our Spiritual leaders in the Diaspora have not taken note of how their Armenian Communities have acculturated during the past 50 to 70 years.
Most communities now included 2 and 3 generations of American born Armenian youth whose parents are also American born. To make a long story short, I’m not confident that the old goals we pretend to be pursuing apply any longer.
Each community needs to face the realities of the 21st century. Most of our families are integrated into middle class and upper middle class neighborhoods. English is the primary language spoken in the home. The children are very engaged with their American classmates in after school sports etc.
I think I’m probably exceeding the allotted space for comments. Each community must conduct a thorough needs assessment to determine what’s resonating and what isn’t and whether the existing programs are even relevant any more for this new reality of being Armenia in the 21st century.