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Despite wars, Mormons in Beirut persist
The Salt Lake Tribune, UTAH
July 22, 2006
Lebanon missionaries have faced evacuation before
By Peggy Fletcher Stack
It was Christmas 1965 and Elder Robert Burton had just gotten his
new assignment - Beirut, Lebanon.
The 19-year-old Mormon missionary from Salt Lake City was serving in
the LDS Church's Swiss mission, which had responsibility for Italy,
all of Eastern Europe, the Middle East and North Africa. Burton and
his mission companion were to be the first proselytizing missionaries
sent into the largely Muslim nation in years. "I advised my parents
that my monthly support could no longer come in the form of a Zions
Bank check," says Burton, who teaches computer science at Brigham
Young University. "And, of course, songs such as 'Israel, Israel,
God is Calling' had to be dropped from the collection of acceptable
hymns." Burton and other American missionaries walked the streets
of what was then the Paris of the Middle East, looking for converts
to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The response was
overwhelming. Within two years, church membership went from a paltry
14 to more than 350. It all fell apart with the civil war that began
in 1975. Many ethnic Armenian members living in Lebanon immigrated to
Los Angeles and Salt Lake City, while missionaries and other Americans
were ordered to leave. Slowly, the LDS Church there dwindled and
died. It was not officially resurrected until the late 1990s, when
church headquarters sent humanitarian missionaries to help support
a tiny Mormon congregation. The church is not officially recognized
in Lebanon, so the 40 or so members meet every week in an apartment
as the "LDS Association." Proselytizing is forbidden. The story
of Mormonism in Lebanon has been a recurring cycle of creation and
dissolution. Over the past two weeks, yet another round of violence
began, forcing the current humanitarian missionary couple to leave
the country. Again the question: What will happen to the Lebanese
members left behind this time?
Rumors of wars: Mormon Apostle Orson Hyde arrived in the Middle East
in 1841, a mere decade after the LDS Church was organized in upstate
New York, to dedicate the Holy Land for the spread of Mormonism. But it
wasn't until the late 1800s that missionary work began in earnest. That
didn't last long, either. It resumed in 1935, but discontinued with the
outbreak of World War II. In 1947 a mission was re-established with 12
missionaries, including a young Carlos E. Asay (later an LDS general
authority) who gained publicity for the church by joining the Lebanese
national basketball team, according to a history written by Robert
Collier. When Burton and others returned in 1965, they felt certain
this time their work would last. Confidence ran high as they began
baptizing their Mormon converts in the Mediterranean Sea. "We had
more converts than all missionaries in Switzerland put together,"
Burton recalls. Few missionaries learned Arabic, but they lived in
the Christian sector (where many people spoke French and English),
and members helped them translate when necessary. In the spring of
1967, the Six Days War thwarted their efforts. Burton had left, but
10 missionaries remained under the leadership of Robert E. Fowles,
now a cardiologist in Salt Lake City. The young elders knew about
the war from newspapers, but weren't worried for their own safety
until members urged them to flee. They went to the American Embassy
in Beirut for advice, only to find it evacuated. Then they went to
the airport, where an American official told them to get out of the
country immediately. They found seats on the last plane to depart,
Fowles recalls, leaving their belongings behind, not even knowing where
they were heading. They landed in Rome, then returned to Switzerland
for a few weeks. But Fowles and others yearned to return to Beirut,
so their reluctant mission president allowed them to go back.
There they had more success and more adventures, including being
thrown in a Beirut jail on suspicion of being "Zionist CIA agents."
But their optimism proved naive. Within a decade, their members were
left alone again.
Dreaming of a church: In 1985, Nabil Assouad, a Beirut resident,
went on a three-week vacation to London to get away from the civil
war and to practice his English. While there, he had a dream in
which he saw a church and chapel where he felt a kind of peace he had
never known. A few days later, he saw an LDS chapel near Hyde Park
and recognized it from his dream. Within nine days, he was baptized.
Assouad then returned to Beirut and taught his family about the new
faith. One by one, his whole family was baptized in different places
and circumstances. He and his brother, Karim, both served missions
for the church, in England and Belgium respectively. Their families
now form the nucleus of the Beirut branch, with each brother taking
turns as president. Meanwhile, Kevork Khanadenian was looking for
his church. Fowles had baptized Khanadenian and his family in 1967
when he was 11. When the Americans left in 1975, they gave him all
the church records, manuals and copies of the Book of Mormon. For
25 years, he had his faith and his books, but no congregation.
By early 2002, Khanadenian found the LDS Church on the Internet.
He contacted the humanitarian missionaries and showed them his
baptismal certificate, a photo of himself with Fowles and lots of
other related documents. Since then, he and his wife, Zovig, have
been to Utah twice. They were sealed in the Salt Lake temple in 2004.
These are the people who will hold the church together in these tough
times, says Sharon Heiss, a Sandy grandmother who returned from a
humanitarian mission to Beirut in 2004. She believes the church there
is "strong and growing," with an adequate supply of male leaders to
officiate in the church's lay clergy. "The church will continue
even with the war," Heiss said Thursday. "Somehow or other, they
will manage."
Photo 1: Four Mormon missionaries in Beirut during the summer of
1966. From left: Robert P. Burton, Robert E. Fowles (both of Salt
Lake City), Clinton J. Albano (of Wieser, Idaho) and Terrell E. Hunt
(of Covina, Calif.). (Courtesy of Robert Burton )
Photo 2: Members of the Beirut branch of the LDS Church, back row
from left: Hagop Daghlian, Nabil Assouad, Kevork Khanadenian, Andrew
Mojica and Karim Assouad. In the front is Frank Heiss, who served a
humanitarian mission in the area. (Courtesy of Sharon and Frank Heiss)
The Salt Lake Tribune, UTAH
July 22, 2006
Lebanon missionaries have faced evacuation before
By Peggy Fletcher Stack
It was Christmas 1965 and Elder Robert Burton had just gotten his
new assignment - Beirut, Lebanon.
The 19-year-old Mormon missionary from Salt Lake City was serving in
the LDS Church's Swiss mission, which had responsibility for Italy,
all of Eastern Europe, the Middle East and North Africa. Burton and
his mission companion were to be the first proselytizing missionaries
sent into the largely Muslim nation in years. "I advised my parents
that my monthly support could no longer come in the form of a Zions
Bank check," says Burton, who teaches computer science at Brigham
Young University. "And, of course, songs such as 'Israel, Israel,
God is Calling' had to be dropped from the collection of acceptable
hymns." Burton and other American missionaries walked the streets
of what was then the Paris of the Middle East, looking for converts
to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The response was
overwhelming. Within two years, church membership went from a paltry
14 to more than 350. It all fell apart with the civil war that began
in 1975. Many ethnic Armenian members living in Lebanon immigrated to
Los Angeles and Salt Lake City, while missionaries and other Americans
were ordered to leave. Slowly, the LDS Church there dwindled and
died. It was not officially resurrected until the late 1990s, when
church headquarters sent humanitarian missionaries to help support
a tiny Mormon congregation. The church is not officially recognized
in Lebanon, so the 40 or so members meet every week in an apartment
as the "LDS Association." Proselytizing is forbidden. The story
of Mormonism in Lebanon has been a recurring cycle of creation and
dissolution. Over the past two weeks, yet another round of violence
began, forcing the current humanitarian missionary couple to leave
the country. Again the question: What will happen to the Lebanese
members left behind this time?
Rumors of wars: Mormon Apostle Orson Hyde arrived in the Middle East
in 1841, a mere decade after the LDS Church was organized in upstate
New York, to dedicate the Holy Land for the spread of Mormonism. But it
wasn't until the late 1800s that missionary work began in earnest. That
didn't last long, either. It resumed in 1935, but discontinued with the
outbreak of World War II. In 1947 a mission was re-established with 12
missionaries, including a young Carlos E. Asay (later an LDS general
authority) who gained publicity for the church by joining the Lebanese
national basketball team, according to a history written by Robert
Collier. When Burton and others returned in 1965, they felt certain
this time their work would last. Confidence ran high as they began
baptizing their Mormon converts in the Mediterranean Sea. "We had
more converts than all missionaries in Switzerland put together,"
Burton recalls. Few missionaries learned Arabic, but they lived in
the Christian sector (where many people spoke French and English),
and members helped them translate when necessary. In the spring of
1967, the Six Days War thwarted their efforts. Burton had left, but
10 missionaries remained under the leadership of Robert E. Fowles,
now a cardiologist in Salt Lake City. The young elders knew about
the war from newspapers, but weren't worried for their own safety
until members urged them to flee. They went to the American Embassy
in Beirut for advice, only to find it evacuated. Then they went to
the airport, where an American official told them to get out of the
country immediately. They found seats on the last plane to depart,
Fowles recalls, leaving their belongings behind, not even knowing where
they were heading. They landed in Rome, then returned to Switzerland
for a few weeks. But Fowles and others yearned to return to Beirut,
so their reluctant mission president allowed them to go back.
There they had more success and more adventures, including being
thrown in a Beirut jail on suspicion of being "Zionist CIA agents."
But their optimism proved naive. Within a decade, their members were
left alone again.
Dreaming of a church: In 1985, Nabil Assouad, a Beirut resident,
went on a three-week vacation to London to get away from the civil
war and to practice his English. While there, he had a dream in
which he saw a church and chapel where he felt a kind of peace he had
never known. A few days later, he saw an LDS chapel near Hyde Park
and recognized it from his dream. Within nine days, he was baptized.
Assouad then returned to Beirut and taught his family about the new
faith. One by one, his whole family was baptized in different places
and circumstances. He and his brother, Karim, both served missions
for the church, in England and Belgium respectively. Their families
now form the nucleus of the Beirut branch, with each brother taking
turns as president. Meanwhile, Kevork Khanadenian was looking for
his church. Fowles had baptized Khanadenian and his family in 1967
when he was 11. When the Americans left in 1975, they gave him all
the church records, manuals and copies of the Book of Mormon. For
25 years, he had his faith and his books, but no congregation.
By early 2002, Khanadenian found the LDS Church on the Internet.
He contacted the humanitarian missionaries and showed them his
baptismal certificate, a photo of himself with Fowles and lots of
other related documents. Since then, he and his wife, Zovig, have
been to Utah twice. They were sealed in the Salt Lake temple in 2004.
These are the people who will hold the church together in these tough
times, says Sharon Heiss, a Sandy grandmother who returned from a
humanitarian mission to Beirut in 2004. She believes the church there
is "strong and growing," with an adequate supply of male leaders to
officiate in the church's lay clergy. "The church will continue
even with the war," Heiss said Thursday. "Somehow or other, they
will manage."
Photo 1: Four Mormon missionaries in Beirut during the summer of
1966. From left: Robert P. Burton, Robert E. Fowles (both of Salt
Lake City), Clinton J. Albano (of Wieser, Idaho) and Terrell E. Hunt
(of Covina, Calif.). (Courtesy of Robert Burton )
Photo 2: Members of the Beirut branch of the LDS Church, back row
from left: Hagop Daghlian, Nabil Assouad, Kevork Khanadenian, Andrew
Mojica and Karim Assouad. In the front is Frank Heiss, who served a
humanitarian mission in the area. (Courtesy of Sharon and Frank Heiss)