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Roads and Kingdoms
Aug 26 2014
My Uncle, Catholicos Zareh I of the Holy See of Cilicia
by Arto Vaun
The large black-and-white photo of him in our living room never
frightened me. His long dark beard; the pointy black hat; his thick
fingers gripping an ornate staff; heavy crosses on chains draped over
his black vestments; and his tired, kind eyes. I would sometimes
notice the photo as though for the first time and just gaze at it, at
him, locking eyes for a moment. This stranger who had died before I
was born, who was sacrificed at a young age in one of the most
pivotal, tumultuous periods in the history of Armenia, the Cold War,
and the Middle East. This melancholy, radiant, overweight man looking
at me year after year. Then one day as I was watching him watch me, I
realized: without the beard, the vestments, and weight, he looked just
like his youngest brother, my father, a working-class mechanic in
Boston.
My uncle was Catholicos Zareh I of the House of Cilicia. And if that
doesn't mean anything to you, don't worry: it took me a long time to
understand the man and his legacy. I'm still working on it, in fact. I
knew him from stories: he was born during the Armenian Genocide of
1915, that he was truly spiritual even from a young age, that he died
young as well: a victim of heart attack, brought on, many say, by the
stress of a great division among his people. I knew that the nearly
half a million shocked people who poured into the streets of Beirut in
February 1963 for his funeral were not all his supporters--Armenians
were at war with themselves in those days. But recently I've been
visiting Beirut, and I'm finding that the Armenians there know him
still, and they've been teaching me what the man truly meant.
<img src="/assets/thumb/image.php?w=680&q=78&src=http://roadsandkingdoms.com/uploads/2014/08/zareh-uncle1.jpg"
alt="" />
The author's uncle, Catholicos Zareh I. Controversy over his election
as Catholicos in 1956 was due to his outspoken stance against the
USSR's version of communism. Photo courtesy of Arto Vaun.
The August humidity is intense as I head to Antelias, the Holy See of
the Cilician Armenian Church, which dates back to the 4th century AD.
After the genocide, the catholicosate (one of two seats of the
Armenian church) was forced to move from its historic home in Sis, in
present day Turkey. First it moved to Aleppo in 1921 and then settled
in Beirut in 1924. The church has always played an integral role as a
refuge and center of identity after pogroms throughout the ages, and
it was no different after the genocide, when it provided the only
semblance of unity, hope, and perseverance in the face of mass
devastation, migration, poverty, and loss.
I've decided to just show up in Antelias without letting anyone there
know about my connection to Zareh. An older man with white hair and a
moustache lets me into the church compound, greeting me warmly, then
disappearing back into his office. No one else seems to be around. I
walk into the quiet, wide courtyard that's pale and glowing in the
searing sunlight. I can hear the musical chaos of Beirut traffic on
the other side of the high walls as I approach where my uncle is
buried, next to the main cathedral. The first thing I see is one
violet carnation placed casually on his tomb. All I can bring myself
to do is lightly place my hand on the warm marble and touch his name.
Stalin had deceived many thousands of Armenians into "repatriating" to
Soviet Armenia
The controversy around Zareh's election as Catholicos in 1956 was due
to his outspoken stance against the USSR's version of communism, and
its mistreatment of Soviet citizens, specifically Soviet Armenians.
Only ten years earlier, Stalin had deceived many thousands of
Armenians into "repatriating" to Soviet Armenia. The bulk of those who
fell for the ideological bait were from Syria and Lebanon. They gave
up relatively stable lives for an idea that was, in the end, nothing
close to the reality. When they reached Soviet Armenia, their assets
were seized and they were forced to live in mostly abject conditions.
Many were sent straight to Siberia. Yet opinion about the place was
surprisingly divided among Armenians--some saw it as the first Armenian
homeland in decades, while others wanted to rescue their brethren from
Stalin. It was very much a visceral issue, polarizing Armenians all
over the world, but especially in the Middle East, where the large
portion of genocide survivors had ended up after WWI, and where the
Cold War was now being played out in different ways. Although all
Armenians knew of the awful conditions in the Soviet Union, they were
bitterly split on whether to support Soviet Armenians and work in more
diplomatic ways to assist them, or to more directly organize and
struggle to undermine Soviet Armenia and communism in order to
"liberate" Armenia. Both sides grew increasingly entrenched and
extreme in their approaches.
<img src="/assets/thumb/image.php?w=1024&q=78&src=http://roadsandkingdoms.com/uploads/2014/08/antelias4.jpg"
alt="" />
The author visiting his uncle's tomb at the church compound in
Antelias. Photo by: Roubina Margossian
Previous
Next
That polarization in Beirut during Zareh's election lead to violence
and chaos. At no other time in modern Armenian history have Armenians
clashed with each other the way they did during those few years.
Pro-Soviet Armenia factions sent prostitutes to taunt him; there were
protests by pro-Soviet parties; ancient relics were stolen from
Antelias; and cartoons depicted him as, among other things, a donkey.
It got to the point where the Lebanese president at the time, Camille
Chamoun, ordered the army to patrol and secure the Armenian
neighborhoods in Beirut. When Zareh's mother (my grandmother) died
suddenly in 1958, Zareh was not able to attend her funeral in Aleppo
because of fear that his opponents might keep him from returning. Five
years later, he would follow her, at age 48, due to sudden cardiac
arrest. One can see in his photos between 1950 to 1963 a
transformation that speaks volumes about his position and the times--a
robust, jet black-haired young man turning into an exhausted,
gray-haired old man, whose eyes still flicker, but whose face gives
away a profound frustration, sadness, and pain.
<img src="/assets/thumb/image.php?w=1024&q=78&src=http://roadsandkingdoms.com/uploads/2014/08/antelias2.jpg"
alt="" />
A single violet carnation had been placed on Zareh I's tomb. Photo by:
Roubina Margossian
Previous
Next
During my first trip to Beirut in 2002, I was bowled over by the
energetic and passionate reaction I got from people who were told that
Zareh was my uncle. Just the fact that my Lebanese-Armenian friends
felt it necessary to point out my relationship to him whenever we met
new people was peculiar. It's not something I bring up or talk about
much. But now that I've been there a few times, I think there's a
collective guilt on all sides, and that's part of the thoughtful
reactions to him, 50 years after his death. Each person who talks
about him to me, no matter their background, says something like, It
was so sad what happened to that man. He was a saint, in the wrong
place at the wrong time.
I usually smile slightly and say, That's nice of you, thank you. What
else can I say? I'm not one-tenth of the devout, selfless man that he
was. I don't deserve those kinds of gracious responses from people
about someone I never even knew. But the more I'm drawn to Beirut, the
more I understand that my tiny, transient role is to allow people to
express those feelings, which are, amazingly, still so strong all
these years later. And in a way, it helps me connect to the man in the
photo who watched me grow up, and who I feel a deeper tie to with each
year.
<img src="/assets/thumb/image.php?w=680&q=78&src=http://roadsandkingdoms.com/uploads/2014/08/antelias5.jpg"
alt="" />
The author in the church compound at Antelias where his uncle was
buried. Photo: Roubina Margossian
1983: I'm a little kid in our kitchen in Boston. My mom's older cousin
is sitting at the table with my parents, having coffee. He begins to
softly and uncomfortably tell my dad that his father, my grandfather,
has died in Aleppo, at age 98. My father crumples like paper. Soon
after his brother Zareh died in 1963, my dad, who was in the Syrian
army at the time, left Syria to avoid being called to fight in the
growing conflict with Israel. He never saw his father again. As I
watch him sob, all I can do is wrap my little arms around his neck and
cry with him. Seven years later, I will suddenly lose him too, one
Sunday evening in November. He'll go the exact way his oldest brother
did.
My family's story is, like that of so many other Armenians, and
non-Armenians, from the Middle East, riddled with loss, uphill
battles, and unwanted sea changes. And this ties me forever to Beirut
and Aleppo, drawing me like a warm light inside a home. They are two
cities that are again struggling to breathe in a claustrophobic deluge
of ideological and political shortsightedness, extremism, and outside
meddling.
On the flight back to Armenia from Beirut a few weeks ago, I thought
about that random carnation on my uncle's tomb, then remembered
suddenly: Carnations were my dad's favorite flower - he used to buy
them often for my mom for no particular reason.
During these trips to Beirut, it seems, I am not just visiting my
uncle, but also being visited by him.
Arto Vaun is a poet, writer, and musician originally from Boston,
currently living in Yerevan, Armenia where he's a lecturer in
literature at the American University.
http://roadsandkingdoms.com/2014/my-uncle-catholicos-zareh-i-of-the-holy-see-of-cilicia/
Aug 26 2014
My Uncle, Catholicos Zareh I of the Holy See of Cilicia
by Arto Vaun
The large black-and-white photo of him in our living room never
frightened me. His long dark beard; the pointy black hat; his thick
fingers gripping an ornate staff; heavy crosses on chains draped over
his black vestments; and his tired, kind eyes. I would sometimes
notice the photo as though for the first time and just gaze at it, at
him, locking eyes for a moment. This stranger who had died before I
was born, who was sacrificed at a young age in one of the most
pivotal, tumultuous periods in the history of Armenia, the Cold War,
and the Middle East. This melancholy, radiant, overweight man looking
at me year after year. Then one day as I was watching him watch me, I
realized: without the beard, the vestments, and weight, he looked just
like his youngest brother, my father, a working-class mechanic in
Boston.
My uncle was Catholicos Zareh I of the House of Cilicia. And if that
doesn't mean anything to you, don't worry: it took me a long time to
understand the man and his legacy. I'm still working on it, in fact. I
knew him from stories: he was born during the Armenian Genocide of
1915, that he was truly spiritual even from a young age, that he died
young as well: a victim of heart attack, brought on, many say, by the
stress of a great division among his people. I knew that the nearly
half a million shocked people who poured into the streets of Beirut in
February 1963 for his funeral were not all his supporters--Armenians
were at war with themselves in those days. But recently I've been
visiting Beirut, and I'm finding that the Armenians there know him
still, and they've been teaching me what the man truly meant.
<img src="/assets/thumb/image.php?w=680&q=78&src=http://roadsandkingdoms.com/uploads/2014/08/zareh-uncle1.jpg"
alt="" />
The author's uncle, Catholicos Zareh I. Controversy over his election
as Catholicos in 1956 was due to his outspoken stance against the
USSR's version of communism. Photo courtesy of Arto Vaun.
The August humidity is intense as I head to Antelias, the Holy See of
the Cilician Armenian Church, which dates back to the 4th century AD.
After the genocide, the catholicosate (one of two seats of the
Armenian church) was forced to move from its historic home in Sis, in
present day Turkey. First it moved to Aleppo in 1921 and then settled
in Beirut in 1924. The church has always played an integral role as a
refuge and center of identity after pogroms throughout the ages, and
it was no different after the genocide, when it provided the only
semblance of unity, hope, and perseverance in the face of mass
devastation, migration, poverty, and loss.
I've decided to just show up in Antelias without letting anyone there
know about my connection to Zareh. An older man with white hair and a
moustache lets me into the church compound, greeting me warmly, then
disappearing back into his office. No one else seems to be around. I
walk into the quiet, wide courtyard that's pale and glowing in the
searing sunlight. I can hear the musical chaos of Beirut traffic on
the other side of the high walls as I approach where my uncle is
buried, next to the main cathedral. The first thing I see is one
violet carnation placed casually on his tomb. All I can bring myself
to do is lightly place my hand on the warm marble and touch his name.
Stalin had deceived many thousands of Armenians into "repatriating" to
Soviet Armenia
The controversy around Zareh's election as Catholicos in 1956 was due
to his outspoken stance against the USSR's version of communism, and
its mistreatment of Soviet citizens, specifically Soviet Armenians.
Only ten years earlier, Stalin had deceived many thousands of
Armenians into "repatriating" to Soviet Armenia. The bulk of those who
fell for the ideological bait were from Syria and Lebanon. They gave
up relatively stable lives for an idea that was, in the end, nothing
close to the reality. When they reached Soviet Armenia, their assets
were seized and they were forced to live in mostly abject conditions.
Many were sent straight to Siberia. Yet opinion about the place was
surprisingly divided among Armenians--some saw it as the first Armenian
homeland in decades, while others wanted to rescue their brethren from
Stalin. It was very much a visceral issue, polarizing Armenians all
over the world, but especially in the Middle East, where the large
portion of genocide survivors had ended up after WWI, and where the
Cold War was now being played out in different ways. Although all
Armenians knew of the awful conditions in the Soviet Union, they were
bitterly split on whether to support Soviet Armenians and work in more
diplomatic ways to assist them, or to more directly organize and
struggle to undermine Soviet Armenia and communism in order to
"liberate" Armenia. Both sides grew increasingly entrenched and
extreme in their approaches.
<img src="/assets/thumb/image.php?w=1024&q=78&src=http://roadsandkingdoms.com/uploads/2014/08/antelias4.jpg"
alt="" />
The author visiting his uncle's tomb at the church compound in
Antelias. Photo by: Roubina Margossian
Previous
Next
That polarization in Beirut during Zareh's election lead to violence
and chaos. At no other time in modern Armenian history have Armenians
clashed with each other the way they did during those few years.
Pro-Soviet Armenia factions sent prostitutes to taunt him; there were
protests by pro-Soviet parties; ancient relics were stolen from
Antelias; and cartoons depicted him as, among other things, a donkey.
It got to the point where the Lebanese president at the time, Camille
Chamoun, ordered the army to patrol and secure the Armenian
neighborhoods in Beirut. When Zareh's mother (my grandmother) died
suddenly in 1958, Zareh was not able to attend her funeral in Aleppo
because of fear that his opponents might keep him from returning. Five
years later, he would follow her, at age 48, due to sudden cardiac
arrest. One can see in his photos between 1950 to 1963 a
transformation that speaks volumes about his position and the times--a
robust, jet black-haired young man turning into an exhausted,
gray-haired old man, whose eyes still flicker, but whose face gives
away a profound frustration, sadness, and pain.
<img src="/assets/thumb/image.php?w=1024&q=78&src=http://roadsandkingdoms.com/uploads/2014/08/antelias2.jpg"
alt="" />
A single violet carnation had been placed on Zareh I's tomb. Photo by:
Roubina Margossian
Previous
Next
During my first trip to Beirut in 2002, I was bowled over by the
energetic and passionate reaction I got from people who were told that
Zareh was my uncle. Just the fact that my Lebanese-Armenian friends
felt it necessary to point out my relationship to him whenever we met
new people was peculiar. It's not something I bring up or talk about
much. But now that I've been there a few times, I think there's a
collective guilt on all sides, and that's part of the thoughtful
reactions to him, 50 years after his death. Each person who talks
about him to me, no matter their background, says something like, It
was so sad what happened to that man. He was a saint, in the wrong
place at the wrong time.
I usually smile slightly and say, That's nice of you, thank you. What
else can I say? I'm not one-tenth of the devout, selfless man that he
was. I don't deserve those kinds of gracious responses from people
about someone I never even knew. But the more I'm drawn to Beirut, the
more I understand that my tiny, transient role is to allow people to
express those feelings, which are, amazingly, still so strong all
these years later. And in a way, it helps me connect to the man in the
photo who watched me grow up, and who I feel a deeper tie to with each
year.
<img src="/assets/thumb/image.php?w=680&q=78&src=http://roadsandkingdoms.com/uploads/2014/08/antelias5.jpg"
alt="" />
The author in the church compound at Antelias where his uncle was
buried. Photo: Roubina Margossian
1983: I'm a little kid in our kitchen in Boston. My mom's older cousin
is sitting at the table with my parents, having coffee. He begins to
softly and uncomfortably tell my dad that his father, my grandfather,
has died in Aleppo, at age 98. My father crumples like paper. Soon
after his brother Zareh died in 1963, my dad, who was in the Syrian
army at the time, left Syria to avoid being called to fight in the
growing conflict with Israel. He never saw his father again. As I
watch him sob, all I can do is wrap my little arms around his neck and
cry with him. Seven years later, I will suddenly lose him too, one
Sunday evening in November. He'll go the exact way his oldest brother
did.
My family's story is, like that of so many other Armenians, and
non-Armenians, from the Middle East, riddled with loss, uphill
battles, and unwanted sea changes. And this ties me forever to Beirut
and Aleppo, drawing me like a warm light inside a home. They are two
cities that are again struggling to breathe in a claustrophobic deluge
of ideological and political shortsightedness, extremism, and outside
meddling.
On the flight back to Armenia from Beirut a few weeks ago, I thought
about that random carnation on my uncle's tomb, then remembered
suddenly: Carnations were my dad's favorite flower - he used to buy
them often for my mom for no particular reason.
During these trips to Beirut, it seems, I am not just visiting my
uncle, but also being visited by him.
Arto Vaun is a poet, writer, and musician originally from Boston,
currently living in Yerevan, Armenia where he's a lecturer in
literature at the American University.
http://roadsandkingdoms.com/2014/my-uncle-catholicos-zareh-i-of-the-holy-see-of-cilicia/