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FIRST ANNIVERSARY OF AN ARMENIAN BISHOP IN THE UK & IRELAND
Ekklesia
Nov 5 2012
UK
An obiter dictum by Dr Harry Hagopian, Ekklesia Associate
On 6 November 2012, the Armenian Church and its community in the
UK & Ireland recall the first anniversary of the ordination at Holy
Etchmiadzin of their serpazan or bishop as the primate of the Armenian
Apostolic Church.
But why pen down a personal reflection on this joyous albeit young
anniversary? In fact, why create any euphonic chatter about this rather
brief and somewhat inattentive date in our calendars? Surely not many
other archbishops and bishops, whether Armenian or not, have gone
out of their way to celebrate their first anniversary? Even wedding
anniversaries do not seriously start allocating names to their years
until at least the fifth one which incidentally is wooden!
I suppose two things encourage me toward such a moment of hopeful - and
prayerful - pause. The Armenian British community is so miniscule that
it matters to its sense of identity not to overlook those dates. It
is a habitual textbook case of centrism that almost seeks to affirm
the self through the other.
Moreover, and to be both fair and candid, our incumbent bishop has
been anything but slothful and it therefore behoves upon us all to
show his ministry our loyalty, support and appreciation. Had I not
written in my reflection one year ago that I had discovered in Bishop
Vahan a man "with a robustly confident faith, a dogged determination
to serve the church in its authentic definition of an assembly of
believers (rather than just of long traditions and few buildings)
and an ability to strengthen the institutions that define the Armenian
ethos within the UK & Ireland"? Had I not added my bemusement at the
amount of dust he had kicked up in such a short time?
But allow me to mull over those achievements for the space of a few
fleeting moments from my own faith-based prism!
In the short period that Vahan Serpazan has been in London, and his
shorter one as bishop, he has managed to kick-start mission parishes
in Cardiff, Birmingham and Dublin, overseen the painstaking creation
of parishes that will eventually come together as a diocese or else
instituted a range of programmes and activities from bilingual Bible
studies to the training of deacons to public lectures and pilgrimages
worldwide let alone to diverse attempts at fund-raising for the church
and perhaps even for the acquisition of a new church building that
could one day double up as a school.
Even when it comes to ecumenical relations, a favourite hobbyhorse of
mine, I can detect the Armenian Church reaching out again - slowly and
gingerly - to other churches and church-related organisations. After
all, let us not forget that the Body of Christ is not entirely
Armenian in its composition even if we Armenians sometimes prefer
to think so! In fact, to paraphrase - and in the process deface -
the doctrine of consubstantiation proposed by Revd Martin Luther, we
Armenians coexist with other Christians just as the substance of the
body and blood of Jesus coexists with the substance of the bread and
wine in the Eucharist. This is what the Armenian faith also demands
from us: not a chauvinistic and solipsistic narrowness of faith or
identity, but rather a more indulgent response to Jesus' exhortation,
'For where two or three meet in my name, I am there among them' (Mt
18:20). Did Bishop Vahan not teach us so in Badarak Basics recently?
But to my mind, those high hopes get dashed and assume proportions of
hyperbole rather than relevance if we overlook the power of love as
the overriding tenet of Christ's teachings - made abundantly clear in,
say, St Luke's Gospel. Love sits supremely alongside the more exalted
fundamentals of faith and hope.
>>From the Early Church onward, despite its councils, schisms and
reforms, this is what has distinguished the church for me as a
true assembly of believers. The power of love colours believers who
find themselves together in cold stone buildings and it remains the
covenant between shepherds and flocks. Does St Matthew's Gospel not
inform us that our [decent and orderly] attitudes to others reflect
our true spirit?
This is perhaps why I hope that this first anniversary of our
bishop's episcopacy does not become a joined-up catalyst for our
mere adulation of leadership or the sparking of innate impulses that
willy-nilly nurture and isolate the id, but rather one that adheres
to the overarching Christian ethos of striving to 'stretch forward'
(as St Paul writes in Phil 3:13), that is inclusive and included,
supportive and supported, indigenous and exogenous, but one that
also subscribes to Jesus' words again, "Render therefore unto Caesar
the things which be Caesar's, and unto God the things which be God's
(Lk 20:25).
Harkeli serpazan hayr, havadarim, hamerashkh, artunaper yev khonarh
darvo shnorhavor maghtankner!
http://www.ekklesia.co.uk/node/17312
From: Baghdasarian
Ekklesia
Nov 5 2012
UK
An obiter dictum by Dr Harry Hagopian, Ekklesia Associate
On 6 November 2012, the Armenian Church and its community in the
UK & Ireland recall the first anniversary of the ordination at Holy
Etchmiadzin of their serpazan or bishop as the primate of the Armenian
Apostolic Church.
But why pen down a personal reflection on this joyous albeit young
anniversary? In fact, why create any euphonic chatter about this rather
brief and somewhat inattentive date in our calendars? Surely not many
other archbishops and bishops, whether Armenian or not, have gone
out of their way to celebrate their first anniversary? Even wedding
anniversaries do not seriously start allocating names to their years
until at least the fifth one which incidentally is wooden!
I suppose two things encourage me toward such a moment of hopeful - and
prayerful - pause. The Armenian British community is so miniscule that
it matters to its sense of identity not to overlook those dates. It
is a habitual textbook case of centrism that almost seeks to affirm
the self through the other.
Moreover, and to be both fair and candid, our incumbent bishop has
been anything but slothful and it therefore behoves upon us all to
show his ministry our loyalty, support and appreciation. Had I not
written in my reflection one year ago that I had discovered in Bishop
Vahan a man "with a robustly confident faith, a dogged determination
to serve the church in its authentic definition of an assembly of
believers (rather than just of long traditions and few buildings)
and an ability to strengthen the institutions that define the Armenian
ethos within the UK & Ireland"? Had I not added my bemusement at the
amount of dust he had kicked up in such a short time?
But allow me to mull over those achievements for the space of a few
fleeting moments from my own faith-based prism!
In the short period that Vahan Serpazan has been in London, and his
shorter one as bishop, he has managed to kick-start mission parishes
in Cardiff, Birmingham and Dublin, overseen the painstaking creation
of parishes that will eventually come together as a diocese or else
instituted a range of programmes and activities from bilingual Bible
studies to the training of deacons to public lectures and pilgrimages
worldwide let alone to diverse attempts at fund-raising for the church
and perhaps even for the acquisition of a new church building that
could one day double up as a school.
Even when it comes to ecumenical relations, a favourite hobbyhorse of
mine, I can detect the Armenian Church reaching out again - slowly and
gingerly - to other churches and church-related organisations. After
all, let us not forget that the Body of Christ is not entirely
Armenian in its composition even if we Armenians sometimes prefer
to think so! In fact, to paraphrase - and in the process deface -
the doctrine of consubstantiation proposed by Revd Martin Luther, we
Armenians coexist with other Christians just as the substance of the
body and blood of Jesus coexists with the substance of the bread and
wine in the Eucharist. This is what the Armenian faith also demands
from us: not a chauvinistic and solipsistic narrowness of faith or
identity, but rather a more indulgent response to Jesus' exhortation,
'For where two or three meet in my name, I am there among them' (Mt
18:20). Did Bishop Vahan not teach us so in Badarak Basics recently?
But to my mind, those high hopes get dashed and assume proportions of
hyperbole rather than relevance if we overlook the power of love as
the overriding tenet of Christ's teachings - made abundantly clear in,
say, St Luke's Gospel. Love sits supremely alongside the more exalted
fundamentals of faith and hope.
>>From the Early Church onward, despite its councils, schisms and
reforms, this is what has distinguished the church for me as a
true assembly of believers. The power of love colours believers who
find themselves together in cold stone buildings and it remains the
covenant between shepherds and flocks. Does St Matthew's Gospel not
inform us that our [decent and orderly] attitudes to others reflect
our true spirit?
This is perhaps why I hope that this first anniversary of our
bishop's episcopacy does not become a joined-up catalyst for our
mere adulation of leadership or the sparking of innate impulses that
willy-nilly nurture and isolate the id, but rather one that adheres
to the overarching Christian ethos of striving to 'stretch forward'
(as St Paul writes in Phil 3:13), that is inclusive and included,
supportive and supported, indigenous and exogenous, but one that
also subscribes to Jesus' words again, "Render therefore unto Caesar
the things which be Caesar's, and unto God the things which be God's
(Lk 20:25).
Harkeli serpazan hayr, havadarim, hamerashkh, artunaper yev khonarh
darvo shnorhavor maghtankner!
http://www.ekklesia.co.uk/node/17312
From: Baghdasarian