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The Last Armenian Church in Myanmar

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  • The Last Armenian Church in Myanmar

    First Things
    Sept 1 2014

    The Last Armenian Church in Myanmar

    by Mark Movsesian


    >From the BBC's News Magazine, here's a lovely essay, "The Last
    Armenians of Myanmar," about a small Armenian parish church, St. John
    the Baptist, in the capital city of Yangon. The Armenian community
    built the church in 1862, when the country was still known as Burma,
    and the city as Rangoon. The Armenians had come to Rangoon in the 18th
    century from Iran, by way of British India, following the trade
    routes.They established close ties to the Burmese monarchy, which
    donated the land for the church in the center of the city.

    As its title suggests, the essay has a wistful, elegiac tone. Hardly
    any Armenians remain in Myanmar today--most departed for Australia
    after World War II--and the parish gets only a handful of worshipers on
    Sundays. But the situation is not altogether grim. Faithful
    parishioners continue to maintain the church lovingly (photos of the
    interior make it look Victorian and vaguely Episcopalian) and the
    liturgy is said every Sunday by Fr. John Felix, a South Indian convert
    from Anglicanism. The choir continues to sing the hymns in classical
    Armenian.

    There is hope that two things will work to preserve the building.
    First, as Myanmar opens to the world, international tourism is
    increasing. As one of the the city's principal historic landmarks, the
    church should benefit. Second, the church has become the focal point
    for the small Orthodox community in Yangon, not just Armenians:

    Already diplomats, business visitors and tourists from a range of
    Orthodox countries and churches - Russian, Greek, Serbian -
    occasionally swell the numbers at St John the Baptist, the only
    Orthodox church in Myanmar's biggest city.

    A new worshiper here, Ramona Tarta, is Romanian, a globetrotting
    business woman, publisher and events organizer who has lived in Yangon
    for the last few months.

    "My faith is very important to me. Wherever I am in the world, I seek
    out an Orthodox church. But I was about to give up on Yangon. I
    thought it was the only city I'd ever lived in which had no Orthodox
    place of worship," she complains.

    She chanced across the Armenian church when driving past, and believes
    that with a little promotion, this historic building - and the
    tradition to which it bears testimony - could have a more secure
    future.

    There's a lesson here. Many of these Orthodox Churches have been out
    of communion for thousands of years. Formally, they are not supposed
    to worship together. But at the ends of the earth, and surrounded by
    people for whom these sectarian differences mean nothing, Christians
    somehow manage to cooperate. A hopeful example of practical ecumenism
    that Christians everywhere should keep in mind.


    http://www.firstthings.com/blogs/firstthoughts/2014/09/the-last-armenian-church-in-myanmar


    From: Baghdasarian
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