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Armenian Church To Form Its First Utah Parish

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  • Armenian Church To Form Its First Utah Parish

    ARMENIAN CHURCH TO FORM ITS FIRST UTAH PARISH

    09:32 01.02.2013

    Armenia adopted Christianity as its national religion in A.D. 301,
    but it has taken another 17 centuries for that national church to
    come to the Beehive State.

    This weekend, Archbishop Hovnan Derderian, head of the Western Diocese
    of the Armenian Apostolic Church of North America, will be in Utah
    to celebrate the Divine Liturgy with the community, to help launch
    its first parish here and to announce the appointment of a permanent
    priest for the parish, the Salt Lakke Tribune reports.

    "Once a church has a shepherd, it can become a family," Derderian said
    in a phone interview from his office in Southern California. "It can
    become a place where their identity is well-maintained and where they
    can become connected to their cultural roots and Christian faith."

    By tradition, St. Gregory, the country's first Christian evangelist,
    "saw Christ in a vision, who indicated to him where to build his
    church, the first Armenian Church," according to the church's website.

    But the country was surrounded by Muslim nations, which often attacked
    it and persecuted its believers, the history says. Armenians were
    massacred in the Ottoman Empire, the site adds, and also suffered
    under the Russians starting in 1893 and later in the Soviet Union
    until the 1980s.

    The Armenian Apostolic Church came to American shores with immigrants
    in 1898. About 2â~@~I½ decades later, it was split into Eastern
    and Western branches, the latter encompassing everything west of
    the Mississippi. Utah will become the newest parish in the Western
    Diocese's 50 established churches.

    In 1996, Armenians in the state tried to create a parish, but "it
    fizzled out," says Miriam McFadden, who has been named the treasurer
    of Utah's newly created parish board. "Some people moved and others
    had health problems."

    Now there are more than 2,000 Armenians living in Utah, and Derderian
    is eager to establish the church here. The archbishop has visited
    the community three times since an organizing meeting took place here
    last March, attracting about 80 people.

    Before this, Armenian Christians would have to pay to fly in a
    priest for baptisms, weddings and funerals for family members so the
    community would "piggyback" onto those services, McFadden says. Now,
    with Derderian's appointment of a permanent priest, the community
    can begin to thrive.

    "To us, the church is more about our identity than the religion," she
    says. "It has a lot of pomp and ceremony, absolutely beautiful music
    [chanting of the Psalms] and lovely rituals. There's a familiarity
    to it for us."

    http://www.armradio.am/en/2013/02/01/armenian-church-to-form-its-first-utah-parish/

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