Megachurch: Echmiadzin

So, earlier I reported that  Georgia is undergoing a big religious resurgence. I can report that the same is not happening in Armenia. One person here told me that “there is not a single practicing Christian in Armenia,” which is obviously an exaggeration, but it is striking how little religious activity there is. Armenians hate it when I compare them to Georgians (more on that later) but anyway, there are several analogues, especially when it comes to Christianity.

For one, Yerevan also has a huge new cathedral, like the Sameba church in Tbilisi. But unlike Sameba, which was packed with people kissing icons and so on, the cathedral here was only sparsely attended when I went one Saturday. Armenians believe that getting married in May is bad luck, so I have not seen any weddings, but even taking that into account, the church was pretty dead. It seemed to be mainly kids chatting quietly in the pews or texting on their cell phones.   

It was built in 2001, to commemorate 1700 years of Christianity in Armenia, and apparently no one likes the design. To me it looks more like an American megachurch than a cathedral.

There is also an analog to Mtskheta in Georgia, the former capital where the holiest churches in Georgia are now. 

Armenia has Echmiadzin, just outside Yerevan, which was the capital during the 4^th century when the king adopted Christianity for (thus beating the Georgians by a few years). The legend is this:

A nun, Hripsime, fled the Roman Empire to Armenia after the emperor Diocletian wanted to marry her. She went to Echmiadzin with several other nuns only to find that the king here, Trdat IV, wanted to marry her as well. When she refused, Trdat stoned her and the other nuns. 

As a divine retribution, god punished Trdat and gave him a mysterious disease and “a boar-like appearance,” in the words of my tour guide Maryam. Trdat’s sister had a vision in which she saw that only one person could cure Trdat: a Christian named Gregory who had happened to kill Trdat’s father and who as a consequence had been imprisoned in a snake-filled pit for 12 years. So Trdat released Gregory, who prayed for 65 days, and Trdat was cured. So Trdat converted to Christianity. But this is just a myth…

… OR IS IT??!! Maryam told me that there have been graves recently discovered nearby with the skulls broken as if by stoning.

So Echmiadzin is now the seat of the Armenian Apostolic Church, here's the cathedral there:

I went on a Sunday morning when a service was going on, and it seemed to be roughly equal parts worshippers, foreign tourists and Armenian tourists. So there were more people taking photos and shooting video than actually praying, which seemed incongruous for the place that was supposed to be the holiest place in Armenia. So it was very cool, with good music and cool outfits, but seemed more like paegentry than practice.

And this concludes my two-part series on Christianity in the Caucasus and Central Asia, as it’s pretty much just Muslims from here on.

Comments

[Jason]

Josh, with all due respect, I think you have missed something about the Armenian culture. Many people are religious, God fearing people but they express it in a very different way. You have missed the fact that Armenians believe they live in the footprint of God and that Armenians are decedents of Noah. People have told me that they feel the whole world is a church and Armenia is one of the holiest so they do not need to go to a building and pay 40 Dram to buy a candle to show they have faith.

Josh, it is important to learn Armenian and get out of the Ararat valley if you want to experience true Armenia. Sadly, your articles fall short of getting to the essence of Armenian Christianity. I hope you will try again and couple it with more learning.

Jason

[hagop]

I agree with Jason. Way off here.

[Josh]

Ha! Thanks both of you for visiting, and keep reading so you'll be sure to see my upcoming post on "The Defensiveness of the Armenian Diaspora Against All Slights, Real or Perceived."

[R]

I trust that post will be followed by another one titled: "How an American journalist spent a few days in a country and was able to generalize about all things Armenian"

[Jason]

Josh, I am sad you posted your comment as you did. First, I am not diaspora. I live in Armenia, speak Armenian and work every day with Armenians of all mindsets. What you have done is taken a western version of Christianity and imposed it on Armenia. That is short sighted on your part. It seems you are willing to judge without getting off the tourist trail and see the real country.

Also, if you wish to keep readers, instead of insulting them, it would be nice if you listed your reasons for your opinions instead of cynical humor.

[Josh]

I listed my reasons in the post: conversations with Armenians (only one of which I quote here, but others confirmed my impression), visits to various churches on the tourist track (Echmiadzin, Hripsime, Noravank) and off (the Yerevan cathedral, Meghri). In Tbilisi there are shops all over selling religious books and whatnot, which is not the case in Yerevan. People kiss icons in the churches in Georgia, cross themselves demonstratively every time they pass a church, and there is a much smaller proportion of churchgoers being tourists and more praying than in Armenia.

Is there anything wrong with the way Armenians do things? Of course not. I myself don't cross myself when I pass a church, when I go to these churches I'm taking photos and being a tourist, and I have never once kissed an icon.

I did not claim, as people seem to think, that Armenians are bad Christians. (Any of my friends who are reading this understand what a ludicrous argument this is for me to be having.) It has nothing to do with being descendents of Noah, or believing all the world is a church.

But I defy anyone to go to Georgia and then go to Armenia and not come to the same conclusion I did.

As for American journalists making generalizations: if you're looking for something else, you've come to the wrong blog. I will inevitably get things wrong, and appreciate being told when I do. I've been in the position of living somewhere for a long time and getting annoyed with people who come in for a short time, don't see "the real country" and act like experts.

But I really like this quote by Lord Palmerston: “When I wish to be misinformed about a country, I ask the man who has lived there thirty years.”

There are useful perspectives to be offered by natives, by longtime expats, and by new visitors.

Anyway, thanks again for your thoughts, and I'll try to keep coming up with provocative posts to keep you reading...

[R]

Fair enough Josh. Why do you think Armenians are less religiously observant than Georgians?

Also since you are comparing Georgia and Armenia what are your thoughts on why relations between Georgians and Armenians are not warmer. You would think two Orthodox Christian peoples sharing the same geography and a lot of history would be better than they are. In fact Tbilisi was the cultural and economic capital for Armenians at a time when Yerevan was little more than a village.

[Josh]

R, fine question, but I don't know. I think the better question is why are Georgians so religiously observant? What I see in Armenia mostly tracks what I see in other post-communist countries, that communism broke people of the religious habit and people who associate with their their religion do so because it's connected with their nationality.

And I've wondered the same thing about why Georgians and Armenians don't like each other, given that it takes a discerning eye to notice much at all different between them. The food is very similar, they drink the same way, the churches are similar, the people look similar, similar lifestyles... I guess it's the tyranny of small differences, the reasons Serbs and Croats hate each other, why Iowans tell Minnesota jokes, and so on.

[phyek]

I found it humorous to see posters trying to argue and prove that their nation is more or just as religious and "god fearing" as the neighbors next door. You'd think reason in this day in age would prevail, but then again, religion gets in the way. Anyway, Josh, keep up with the observations. Looking forward to reading more posts.

[John Beal]

Armenian and Georgian chruches have been out of communio since the 7th century and have very different cultures. This may have something to do with the jealousies between the two peoples. Georgia was associated with Byzantium through its Chalcedonian dogma and Armenia remained pre-Chalcedonian and thus distinguished itself apart from the Byzantine commonwealth.
My impression is that Georrgians consider themselves to 'be Orthodox' and are proud of their nation's historical stance as an Orthodox Christian people amidst a sea of muslims. Their pride in self and nation is wrapped up in a show of Orthodoxy to each other and the world. They thus elaborate many pious customs, though not many are founded in streong dogmatic belief. A case in point is the strange atavism of circumambulating the church while a liturgy is in service, kissing the corners of the edifice and sticking lit candles to the stones there. This woul dmake sense extra-liturgically (as when the communists had closed the church against worship services) but is dysfunctional when the liturgy is actually being offered. This seems to me to indicate that many Georgians want to 'do something religious' but don't quite ken the action going on inside.

In Armenia's case, the church's communion and the nation's boundaries are nearly coterminous (the communion with Copts is irrelevant here) and my guess is that it has an even more pronounced 'deadening' effect on piety. Armenians seem to have a bigger window on the world and to be less interested in religious rites than Georgians – they seem not to rely on them to bolster their identity as much.

[Paul]

I think the problem with this article is taking the amount of kissing icons as being directly proportional to religiosity. I am not positive but I do think that since Armenians are not Orthodox Christians (but their own Apostolic branch) they do not have the tradition of icons found in the Georgian and Russian churches. I've seen paintings in Armenian churches but rarely icons. Nor have I ever noticed kissing icons as a part of the Armenian mass in Armenia or abroad, the diaspora not having the repression of communism and yet no traditions of icons either proving the roots go further back.
Josh mentions that the Armenian church services seemed to be more empty pageantry, but as John the commenter points out demonstrative piety is not necessarily the same as real piety either. Armenians and Georgians have two different traditions and ways of worshipping and while one to the foreign eye will peg one instantly as the "more pious" one, that neglects the fact that there are numerous ways of showing piety and kissing icons in a church is just one of them.
That said, I would be very interested to study the religious revival in Georgia and where it came from while Armenia hasn't similarly fallen into this demonstrable version of piety, real or perceived.