Joseph Hovsepian Ministries
Revival 100 Years After the Armenian Genocide
My family, displaced by the genocide, returned to see Christ at work in our homeland.
In Turkey, genocide
is a fighting word. Three days after Pope Francis publicly labeled the
brutal slaughter of 1.5 million Armenians as "the first genocide of the
20th century," Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Turkey's president, condemned the
pontiff's remarks.
"It is out of the question," Erdogan said, "for there to be a stain, a
shadow called genocide on Turkey." Today the European Union is due to
debate and vote on a resolution to recognize the 100th aniversary of the
genocide. At a press conference in Ankara,
Erdogan said, "Whatever decision the European Parliament takes on
Armenian genocide claims, it would go in one ear and out the other."
Pope Francis commented on the killing of Armenians on Sunday at the
Vatican saying "concealing or denying evil is like allowing a wound to
keep bleeding without bandaging it." The comments were made during Mass
in the Armenian Catholic rite, held at St. Peter's Basilica.
This year the genocide anniversary will be commemorated on April 24.
The killing took place from 1915 to 1923, and 1.5 million people were
executed or massacred or died from starvation, torture, or disease.
“A campaign of race extermination is in progress,” Henry Morgenthau, US
ambassador to Turkey, said in a telegram to the State Department on
July 16, 1915. Turkish soldiers took all males ages 12 and older from
their villages and executed most of them. They sent women, children, and
the elderly to concentration camps and the deserts, allowing them to
starve by the tens of thousands. About 200,000 were forcibly converted
to Islam and had their names changed.
The Ottoman government confiscated churches, monasteries, farms,
businesses, and money. Dozens of eyewitness accounts were published at
the time. But Western nations did little to stop the slaughter, which
Armenians call Meds Yeghern (“the Great Catastrophe”). Nearly all the
fatalities occurred in Turkey or border areas. The mass killing of
Armenians was so well known in Europe that many scholars believe Hitler
referred to it one week before invading Poland in 1939.
The Ottoman Empire’s extermination campaign ultimately failed. Today,
Armenia is an independent nation about the size of Maryland. The
Armenian diaspora now numbers close to 10 million, including some who
live in Turkey. The Armenian church lives on in hundreds of
congregations worldwide. (In the third century, Armenia was the first
nation to accept Christianity as its national faith.) Countless family
lines were not extinguished. The Hovsepians—my family—are numbered among
them.
In 1919, my great-grandfather, Vartan Deumbekjian, married a teenage
war widow, Annig, who had a 4-year-old daughter, Osanna. Vartan joined
the Armenian freedom fighters and remained behind in their village. A
pregnant Annig and Osanna joined the refugees fleeing to a safer place.
Hungry and barefoot, they walked for about a month, crossing the
mountains and eventually reaching a harbor from which they sailed to
Greece.
Armenian children grow up hearing tragic stories of the war. But
because my grandparents and parents were born in Turkey, Egypt, and
Greece, and I was born in Canada, I was never drawn to my ancestral
homeland of Armenia. Neither was my father, Joseph Hovsepian—until he
was almost 70.
In 2008, my mother visited Armenia to reconnect with childhood friends.
My father, pastor of Temple Baptist Church in Montreal, joined her,
hoping to connect with local pastors in Yerevan, the capital. Though
majority-Christian, Armenia is a spiritually thirsty land.
Since then, my father has returned to Armenia four times. He’s brought
clothing, medicine, reading glasses, gospel tracts, and books he
authored, and has developed solid relationships with many pastors. Local
Christians have taken my father from home to home to counsel and pray
with people.
His efforts became a puzzle piece in the still unfolding picture of the
gospel-based reawakening of Armenia’s soul—one person, one household,
and one church at a time. The reawakening is happening amid fresh
violence: Last September, fighters from the Islamic State blew up the
Armenian genocide memorial complex in Der Zor, Syria—close to the site
where Armenian refugees had been forced to march to their deaths in
1915.
To this day, Turkey’s government refuses to recognize the mass killings
as genocide because 5 million perished during the war—Muslims,
Christians, and Jews. Turkey also pressures Western allies not to
categorize it as genocide, and many nations, including the United
States, don’t in any official way. Such “denialism” means Armenians
struggle to gain a hearing for the crimes against their ancestors. The
genocide’s perpetrators were never convicted.
Because of this, many Armenians lost their faith or were influenced by
communism or secularism. “The genocide has scarred all Armenians,” said
my father. “Many still blame God. Some have become atheists. Our aim is
to rekindle their spiritual heritage.”
Reviving a Spiritual Past
About 32 percent of Armenia’s population is poor. A family's plight is
even worse if a widow is the head of household and one of her children
has a disability. Annie, 17, lives in a family like that with her
mother, two siblings, and her grandmother in Sayat Nova, a town in
southwest Armenia.
When Annie’s mother was pregnant with her youngest child, Mary, her
husband killed himself. He’d had an affair with a woman, who became
pregnant. Unable to face the fact that he had broken his marriage vows,
he took a lethal dose of poison. Annie’s mother was overwhelmed, faced
with adultery and suicide all at once. The stress caused severe health
problems. Mary was born with multiple disabilities and is unable to
walk.
Annie’s mother had a family to support but few ways to earn a living
wage. Her grandmother was in shock over the loss of her son and the
condition of her grandchild. Annie was depressed and withdrawn. “I did
not want to talk to anyone,” she said.
Then Annie read a book my father had written. After meditating on its
message, she was overcome. “I had suffered from the thought, I don’t
have an earthly father,” Annie said. “Suddenly, God told me that he is
my friend, my Father, and my Lord and Savior.”
Some weeks after Annie’s conversion last summer, my father and I
arrived in Armenia to minister through local churches. Annie was ready
for baptism. A natural evangelist, she already had introduced her best
friend to Christ. Then my father shared the gospel with Annie’s
grandmother, who agreed she needed Jesus.
This one-to-one grassroots outreach is effective across the board in
Armenia. Larger ministries such as Cru (formerly Campus Crusade for
Christ) also use it in urban settings. Cru arrived in Armenia 16 years
ago, about 9 years after the nation gained its independence after the
fall of the Soviet Union.
Vardan Blbulyan, the Armenian national leader of Cru, said the
ministry’s goals are to build relationships among churches and
ministries, multiply disciples, and, when possible, befriend Muslim
neighbors in the region. “At the end of the 18th century, Turkey wanted
to make Armenia an Islamic country,” he said. “Islamic people thought of
Armenians as a bone in their throats.” But today Armenia and Georgia
are the only Christian-majority nations in the region. Relations with
Turkey continue to be poor.
From 1922 to 1991, the Soviet Union ruled Armenia and suppressed the
church. But in 1988, an under-the-radar revival among Armenians began
that grew many congregations and launched new ones. It occurred around
the time of the devastating earthquake in Spitak that killed about
30,000 people. During those years, Blbulyan came to know Christ. “It was
as if the earthquake destroyed the gates and the Holy Spirit’s wind
began to blow in Armenia.”
Since independence in 1991, Armenia has struggled economically and
spiritually. American researcher Anie Kalayjian has found evidence that
the postgenocide generation of diaspora Armenians struggles with
anxiety, “inherited anger,” and helplessness. “The scar is there,” said
my father. “We acknowledge the genocide and then bring people the good
news of the love of God. The spiritual past of the Armenians who were
persecuted needs to be revived.”
“Today there are signs of spiritual revival again in Armenia,” said
Blbulyan. “The number of believers is increasing, and people are
responding to God’s Word.” More than 90 percent of Armenia’s population
is culturally Christian. The majority belong to the Apostolic Church; a
minority are Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, or evangelical. Operation World
estimates that, while there is an annual decline of 0.3 percent among
Christians in general, evangelicals are seeing a 1.4 percent growth per
year.
As one of the most influential Protestant missions, Cru has organized
its outreach under the banner of the New Life Armenia movement. In its
16 years of operation, it has seen steady growth and sponsored more than
1,000 events and operates 28 fellowship groups, organized
generationally. The movement has created new relationships with other
Christian groups for coordinating outreach.
More than 8,000 young adults have made decisions to follow Christ
through these efforts. “People who come to Christ through New Life
Armenia can choose which church to attend,” said Blbulyan. “New Life
Armenia is like a bridge between different churches, organizations, and
people. We don’t compete but cooperate. My motto is: success needs
everyone.”
‘God Has Visited You’
Those individuals who respond to the gospel are returning to church in
greater Yerevan and its surrounding villages. Pastor Tigran Muradyan
serves with his wife, Valya, and their teenage son, Timothy, in Horom, a
farming community about two hours outside Yerevan.
Village life is hard all year round. The hot, typically rainless
summers dry out the countryside. Women and children are plentiful, but
men are scarce. Husbands and fathers who once provided for their
families through farming have gone to Russia for work. A few men return
home occasionally; others remarry and never return.
The Muradyans live like their neighbors. They have no running water in
their house, which they heat with a wood-burning stove. Their church is
heated by burning dung bricks. They grow their own food and don’t own a
car. Valya disburses funds that church members give to help local
families. One impoverished family, a mother with three preteens, lives
in a rusty rectangular container, a remnant of the Soviet era, with one
door and two windows. The family, abandoned by the father, responded to
the Muradyans’ invitation to attend church and Sunday school. Over time,
they all decided to follow Christ.
But gospel outreach at the grassroots rarely goes so smoothly. Muradyan
said many Armenians already see themselves as Christians. The challenge
is to help them see Christianity as a living faith, not just a cultural
tradition. “Few have any idea about being born again. If you ask them
whether they have eternal life, you will get many confused responses,”
he said. “Our people know how to endure, but they forget that God is the
one who has rescued them.”
Last year, my father helped the church in Horom renovate its building
to provide a warmer, safer worship space during the winters. He never
expected that financing the rebuilding of a rundown structure would
bring spiritual reawakening. Laborers from 16 families managed to find
work because of the renovation project and have been able to take care
of their families’ needs. Many Horom villagers watched the renovation.
One said, “God has again visited you.”
Grief and Celebration
Personal testimonies and addressing unmet spiritual needs are crucial
for spreading the gospel in Armenia. “Every single Armenian needs a
unique approach,” said Blbulyan. “You have to reach each person in his
safe environment. When you share the gospel with your friend, that
friend will share it with his friend.”
After a baptismal service for five people in Horom last summer, an
elderly woman who said she was an atheist publicly challenged my father
for half an hour. She gradually let down her guard and suggested she
might yet become a believer. “Perhaps I am a lost sheep,” she declared.
Another woman, bedridden for ten months, covered in open sores and close
to death, listened to him explain the gospel. She was barely able to
speak but managed to call out to God to forgive her sins.
Evangelizing a postgenocide people group is not comfortable or easy,
but it can be fruitful. “I’m a child of genocide, but I have not allowed
the genocide to hinder my future,” said my father. “I believe God will
raise workers to rekindle the flame of the gospel in Armenia.”
On April 24 and 25, millions of Armenians around the world will grieve
the horrors of 1915 and recall the names of lost ancestors. But in
places like Horom, believers will also look toward their future: renewed
life in Christ.
Ann-Margret Hovsepian, author of three devotional books for preteen
girls, is a women’s ministry leader at Temple Baptist Church in
Montreal. Her latest book, Truth, Dare, Double Dare, was published in 2014.
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