A few weeks ago, while driving to church services, I passed by a local YMCA. It was a beautiful Sunday morning, with the last vestiges of a fading winter in the air. The building was modern, with exquisite landscaping, but what caught my attention was the parking lot—it was full of patrons. Across the street was a crowded Target. I couldn’t help but wonder why people can get up early on a Sunday morning to exercise or shop, but feel little connection to communal worship.
An obvious disc
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Stepan: very interesting article. I started teaching in the Sunday school my years ago. We had over 400 students in the school. I was 7th grade teacher and there was another 7th teacher, we both had 30 students. It was Nersoyan’s book “Faith”.After 40 years of teaching, I retired but I was teaching in the 10th grade using my “Notes” . There was only 10 students in the my class! There were many students in the lower grades but after the 5th grade the class sizes dropped. There were many reasons why we lost students: Sunday sports, studying, and not interested in Church! I don’t know how many are in the Sunday school now. PLEASE DO NOT PUBLISH THIS!
I often wonder if it might have anything to do with the very silly fact there are two churches …. in 2025.
“You have to go to that church, but don’t go to that other church! Amot!”
Yet they don’t want to offer more to their members. Amot on them.
Excellent article indeed of the status of the Armenian church or churches.
Because we are tradition-based faith community, we have that lack of attraction for the community at large.
Nevertheless the leadership is not always well trained for outreach, consequently the Armenian community does not come in great numbers unless there is an entertainment value at that is unfortunate. For that reason, Non-Armenian parishes are teaching what a church community really is by creating educational programs, grief connect, divorce support, community care, mental health, community bible studies, discipleship, men’s fellowship or iron sharpens iron groups. After all it was the church that built the first higher educational institutions, the first hospitals. Didn’t Jesus Christ say : “GO AND MAKE DISCIPLES!”. When are we Armenian going to step into the 21th Century?
Stepan ….you’re so right …I’m a 91 year old..and I’m ashamed of our young generation being absorbed in a world of “anything goes”….you’re rights…parents have ignored their parenting responsibilities in this secular world! Keep writing!! Your voice needs to be heard!!!
Stepan mentions one key ingredient: a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. Can one have a desire and need to attend church, to worship, to savor the richness of the Badarak, the hymns, and what communion truly represents without a personal relationship with our Lord and Savior? So. the question is how can that relationship with Christ be the focus on our churches today? For many have come to that understanding outside of the Armenian Church.
PEAKS & VALLEYS; There is an outreach parish in Columbus, OH affiliated with Diocese that held its services in the St. James Episcopalian Church. I became a member of the church when my job took us to OH. For the last few decades, the elders of the St. James Church have let the Armenian community use the sanctuary, the social hall, and the campus out of Christian brotherhood. The Armenian community has placed a Genocide memorial khatchkar from Armenia on the church premises. The church held its service when a priest became available. Whenever the gap between services became longer than expected, concerns were raises as to why church service is not being held, while attendance when service was held, was not encouraging. We left OH in 2018.
There was a paradox in the community’s relations with the outreach church in Columbus, OH. Apparently also in any established Armenian community. The community does not want to be without an Armenian church, while it also retains its privacy not to attend it with any regularity or attend it only sporadically for all the reasons given in the comments, but never left without a church. There appears to be a natural cycle of peaks and valleys with the community’s relation with its church.
There remains for a core to keep the church going and doing what a church and community centered around a church does and let nature take its course. Valleys follow peaks and peaks follow valleys. Last I heard that the Armenian outreach church in Columbus is doing way better.
My impression is that Stepan’s point is simply “going to church “, not making a choice of churches.
Further, it seems the “anti toward a church” ( anti for various reasons) has diminished a great deal.
I was raised in an Armenian orthodox household with two very devoted, faithful parents. The Armenian church is not welcoming-my father lived in the Jerusalem quarters served as a deacon his entire life. After his passing, the church members he spent years devoting everything to have grown very cold. It was never a welcoming environment. I think like most churches, the more money you donate, the more valuable you are.
They don’t offer any support to their members-there is no Bible study, counseling, seminars, etc. Sunday worship is not enough for people to want to get closer to God. That was something I was craving for so long, so I started to attend Bible studies in other churches/online. I formed bonds with other young moms who were on fire for Jesus and wanted to learn the Word, while instilling our faith in our young children. Truthfully, the church community is very important, but it’s very hard to attend a church that does not seem to care enough for their members.