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The rise of Mormons and Jehovah's Witnesses in the Caucasus

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  • The rise of Mormons and Jehovah's Witnesses in the Caucasus

    Al Jazeera America
    July 5 2014


    The rise of Mormons and Jehovah's Witnesses in the Caucasus

    Armenia and Georgia were the first to adopt Christianity as their
    state religion; now, American evangelical sects beckon

    July 5, 2014 5:00AM ET
    by Tara Isabella Burton


    In the Armenian town of Artashat, a grid of Soviet concrete and
    corrugated tin roofs an hour from the capital city of Yerevan, few
    buildings stand out like the meeting hall of the Church of Jesus
    Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS). Unlike the crumbling towers that
    surround it, this building sports an impeccably white façade. On one
    Sunday in May, more than a hundred Armenians -- most in their 40s and
    50s -- are sharing what Mormons call spiritual "testimony," their words
    translated via earpiece to attending American missionaries.

    Here in the Caucasus region, ethnicity and faith are often treated as
    one. Christians in Armenia and Georgia -- which in the fourth century
    became the first two countries worldwide to adopt Christianity as
    their state religion -- almost uniformly belong to the Armenian
    Apostolic and Georgian Orthodox Churches, respectively (93 percent in
    Armenia, 83 percent in Georgia).

    But a near-century of Soviet-imposed secularism dramatically weakened
    the standing of state churches. Now, many ethnic Armenians and
    Georgians are gravitating toward American evangelical sects with an
    emphasis on attracting converts and a strong missionary presence in
    the region, such as LDS and Jehovah's Witnesses. In Armenia, the
    number of Jehovah's Witnesses here hovers around 11,000; LDS claims
    more than 3,000 members (also known as Mormons). These may be small
    numbers, but they are significant in this country of 3 million, where
    practitioners of other faiths tend to be members of minority
    ethno-religious groups, such as Jews or Muslim Kurds.

    Both Jehovah's Witnesses and Mormons identify as Christians, although
    their non-Trinitarian doctrine -- both deny that Jesus Christ shares a
    single fundamental divine essence with God the Father and the Holy
    Spirit -- has often brought them into conflict with mainline Christian
    tradition.

    "Ask any Armenian on the street and they'll say, 'Yes, I believe in
    God. I believe in Jesus,' " says Varuzhan Pogosyan, president of the
    LDS Mission in Armenia. "But they don't always practice."

    Pogosyan's journey started shortly after the fall of the Soviet Union.
    Then an expatriate in Russia, he attended a local Armenian church,
    both for spiritual reasons and for the opportunity to socialize with
    other ethnic Armenians. But an encounter with a Mormon missionary made
    him realize he could do more than just attend services. "I could
    participate," he says. "I could be involved in the life of the
    church." In the absence of formal clergy, the LDS church offers
    ordinary members a greater role in church affairs, Pogosyan explains.

    It is this sense of involvement that inspired his colleague, Margarit
    Ayvazyan, to convert. Like Pogosyan, Ayvazyan grew up nonreligious
    during Soviet rule, adopting atheism as a philosophically inclined
    teenager. Yet her encounters with LDS missionaries in the early 90's
    left her with a sense of spiritual fulfillment she had not found in
    her parents' Armenian Apostolic services. In a traditional Armenian
    service, she says, "You just stand there and the priests pray." Many
    Armenians cannot even understand the classical Armenian used in
    services. In LDS, where congregants are encouraged to share their
    experiences and participate in Bible-study classes, she has a role to
    play. Even those church members who do not become missionaries are
    encouraged to circulate information among family and friends, recruit
    curious "investigators" to visit services and keep track of lapsed
    members. Pogosyan says most converts here grew up like Ayvazyan:
    secular under the Soviet regime, but now seeking something more.

    In some ways, he says, their history makes his mission easier, as
    "Armenians have always been religious." Soviet-era secularism was a
    temporary aberration, and organizations such as LDS are ideally
    situated to reach those whose religious needs have not been met
    elsewhere or who feel that the Armenian Apostolic Church has failed
    them. After all, in all the years since he left the Church, he's never
    once been contacted by any priests trying to win him back or find out
    why he left: a striking contrast with the LDS church, whose members
    actively identify and reach out to those whose attendance has lapsed.

    Of course, there are challenges. Smoking, drinking and abortion were
    all permissible under the Soviet regime, Pogosyan says, and
    encouraging new converts to maintain what he calls a "healthier" way
    of life is a struggle. The American missionaries at Artashat tell
    stories of priests who attacked their brethren in neighboring towns,
    boys who throw rocks at them as they walk down Yerevan streets ("I
    think [the boys] thought we were Jehovah's Witnesses," one laughs.
    "They can't tell the difference").

    But the biggest challenge for those seeking to convert others may be
    reconciling converts' faith with their ethnic identity. Many of
    Pogosyan's countrymen see those who leave the Apostolic Church as less
    Armenian. He takes pains to emphasize the long-standing relationship
    between Armenia and the LDS church, which first took hold in the
    Armenian diaspora in 19th-century Constantinople, as well as the
    increasing number of foreign missionaries of Armenian descent who have
    come to their ancestral homeland to serve. He is also careful to
    stress the cultural similarities between Armenia and the LDS church.
    "We're very big on family values in Armenia," he says, making the LDS
    church here a perfect fit. Ultimately, his faith has made him more
    Armenian, not less. It has strengthened his relationship with his
    family, his local community. "It has made me a better citizen."

    An LDS place of worship, also known as a ward, in Artashat. LDS Armenia

    Minority evangelical Christian sects face similar challenges in
    Armenia's northern neighbor, Georgia, where religion and nationalism
    are even more closely intertwined. Between 1999 and 2003, Jehovah's
    Witnesses lodged almost 800 complaints of religiously-motivated
    incidents of conflict, many violent, says Manuchar Tsimintia, a lawyer
    and practicing Jehovah's Witness who frequently defends the church in
    human rights cases. Following Georgia's bloodless Rose Revolution in
    2008 and the subsequent installation of Western-leaning Mikhail
    Saakashvili as president, things drastically improved, but tensions
    remain. This situation isn't ameliorated by the fiercely Orthodox,
    nationalist stance of the ruling Georgian Dream coalition, which has
    succeeded Saakashvili's United National Movement. In early May, a
    group of teenagers destroyed a cart of pamphlets Jehovah's Witnesses
    were using to proselytize in Tbilisi's city center, although,
    Tsimintia is pleased to report, the police charged and fined the
    culprits responsible.

    Still, he estimates that there are about 20,000 baptized converts;
    another 20,000 or so attend meetings and worship: such figures, if
    accurate, would comprise nearly 1 percent of Georgia's population.
    Like the Mormons in Armenia, adherents say they converted because of
    disillusionment with Soviet-style anti-clericalism and existing
    ecclesiastical institutions and a desire to participate more fully in
    the activities of their church.

    "It was the end of the communist regime," Tsimintia says of his
    joining the Jehovah's Witnesses. "All people were seeking God." But
    Tsimintia, then enrolled in college, felt dissatisfied by the Georgian
    Orthodox Church, which stirred him emotionally, but could not provide
    him with the answers he sought. "Who is God? Who are we? Where do we
    come from?" It was through independent Bible study, Tsimintia says,
    that he came to the conclusion the Jehovah's Witnesses had access to
    spiritual truth.

    Increasingly, he says, those who came of age after the collapse of the
    Soviet Union are also finding themselves disillusioned with what they
    see as hypocrisy and corruption within the current hierarchy of the
    Georgian Orthodox Church, whose vast wealth and close financial
    relationship with the country's ruling classes have often attracted
    scrutiny. In 2009, for example, each of Georgia's 10 archbishops
    received a luxury SUV from the Georgian government. And the
    disenchantment has only grown more common in recent years as the
    church has attempted to wield greater political influence through its
    alliance with the Georgian Dream party ruling coalition. Many youths
    are also critical of the church's tacit approval of violence; in May
    2013, local Tbilisi priests, leading a mob of 20,000, attacked a small
    group of unarmed anti-homophobia protesters, injuring at least 12.

    "They are not living according to Bible standards," Tsimintia says.
    "[That is what] young people see."

    His colleague Tamaz Khutsishvili recalls a friend who sought spiritual
    guidance from an Orthodox priest, only to have the priest turn up at
    his home "so drunk he could not stand up." One potential convert
    became disillusioned with his own church after a local priest with
    whom he had entrusted some money for temporary safekeeping informed
    him he had spent the funds on the construction of a new church. And
    both Khutsishvili and Tsimintia condemn the Orthodox church-sanctioned
    anti-gay violence last year as an example of church hypocrisy. The
    Bible, they say, condemns aggression. "Even if [people] are doing
    something we see as against the Bible," Khutsishvili says, "we must
    never talk of violence."

    Yet here, too, converts struggle with reconciling their cultural and
    religious identities. "You are not Christian. You are not Orthodox.
    You are not Georgian. I must have heard that 10 times a day," says
    Tsimintia.

    Still, as with the Mormons in Armenia, Tsimintia and Khutsishvili
    choose to appeal to history to defend the essential Georgianness of
    their choice. "Once our ancestors were pagans," Khutsishvili says.
    "Then they found the truth and became Orthodox. Now we're finding
    truth again -- and converting. We are following our ancestors."


    http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2014/7/5/the-rise-of-mormonsandjehovahaswitnessesinthecaucasus.html

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