It has seemed to the writer unnecessary in the preceding pages to say
much about the unimportant ceremonies, forms and certain superstitious
practices which have crept into the Armenian church. But it has been
admitted that, owing to various causes and corrupt influences of both
so called Christian and non-Christian nations about them, the Armenians
were unable to preserve the noble apostolic Church in its simplicity
and purity.
A brief reference already has been made to the emissaries and
missionaries of the Roman Catholic Church, who early, though
unsuccessfully, endeavored to bring the Armenian Church under the
influence and control of the popes of Rome. Yet it may not be
considered a complete failure, especially after the establishment of
the Mukhetarist convent and the activities of its monks, who edited
many ancient Armenian works of those who were leaning toward the papal
views. As the result about one hundred thousand Armenians cut loose
from the Mother Church and formed the Catholic Armenian Church. This
separation was completed by the appointment in 1830 of the Sultan of
Turkey a patriarch over the Catholic Armenians. This missionary work
has not advanced much since.
A few centuries ago news traveled a great deal slower than it does
now. The great Reformation in Europe, which shook the foundations of
some governments, and shaped the destiny of the nations in the west,
was not expected to die out without some little stir in the east. An
Armenian priest wrote a book in 1760, praising the great reformer,
Martin Luther, and his work, and called the attention of the people to
the need for reformation in their own church. It is a pity that his
book was never printed. It was, however, more or less, circulated and
did its good work. The publication and circulation of the Bible by the
British and Russian Bible Societies succeeded the above incident in the
beginning of the last century. These events paved the way for a greater
movement.
The American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions was organized
at Bradford, Mass., June 29, 1810. Mr. Parsons “on his first visit to
Jerusalem in 1821 encountered some Armenian pilgrims, whose interesting
conversation drew from him the suggestion of a mission to Armenia
itself. ‘We shall rejoice,’ said they, ‘and all will rejoice when they
arrive.’”
Several Armenian clergymen espoused the cause of reformation in 1826
at Beirut, Syria. Two of them, Bishop Dionysius and Krikor Vartabed,
like Paul and Barnabas, traveled through Asia Minor preaching the
Gospel to the people with great acceptance. “These brethren assured
the missionaries that the minds of the Armenian people were wonderfully
inclined towards the pure gospel, and that should preachers go among
them doubtless thousands would be ready to receive the truth. They
themselves wrote letters to their countrymen, which excited no little
attention.”[83]
The publication and circulation of several thousand copies of the
Scriptures and their being eagerly read by the leading men, the labors
of these and other Armenian ecclesiastics, and especially the training
school for priests at Constantinople, which was committed to the charge
of Peshtimaljian, “a profound scholar, a theologian, and an humble
student of the Bible--a sort of an Oriental Melancthon, even in his
timidity”--were indubitable signs of a wonderful reformation.
Revs. W. Goodell and Bird were appointed by the board to join the
Syrian Mission, which was established by Rev. Pliny Fisk and Rev.
Levi Parsons, who had left America in 1819. On account of the Greek
revolution then in progress, Christians everywhere, and especially in
the seaports, were treated by the Turks with the greatest barbarity as
they are now. Dr. Goodell wrote from Beirut, May 15, 1826:
“Human beings, whose guilt is no greater than that of their proud
oppressors, are condemned without a trial, their flesh trembling
for fear, their religion blasphemed, their Saviour insulted, their
comforts despoiled, their lives threatened, and their bodies filled
with pain, and deeply marked with the blows inflicted by Turkish
barbarity.”
The condition of affairs compelled the American and English
missionaries and their Armenian assistants to repair for protection
under the British flag to the Island of Malta. Here Dr. Goodell and
his co-workers completed the translation of the New Testament into the
Armeno-Turkish in 1830.[84]
The following year Dr. Goodell was instructed by the Board to go
to Constantinople and commence a distinct mission there among the
Armenians. He was followed in due time by the Revs. Dwight, Schauffer,
Riggs, Bliss, Hamlin, Van Lennep, Wood and others. Their work largely
consisted in opening schools, translating, publishing and printing
religious tracts and portions of the Scriptures, and holding religious
services. In the absence of much reading material in those days, these
tracts, pamphlets and portions of the Bible were eagerly sought and
read by the people, and not without good results.
Indeed, a profound love for the reformation of the Armenian Church had
taken possession of the minds of many leading men among the nation, who
were trying to do all they could. But both their knowledge and their
experience were limited; they needed a wise leader or leaders who could
direct the movement in a way that would accomplish the desired end.
Some of them, when they came in contact with the missionaries, thought
Divine Providence had sent these men to take the lead of this noble
movement. They implicitly confided in the wisdom and ability of the
missionaries to do this.[85]
The wisdom, magnanimity, and the piety of those missionaries were
unquestionable. They showed their wisdom in the fact that they
“steadily pursued the policy of disseminating the truth without making
attacks upon the Armenian Church.”
The silent influence of this reformation spread far and wide in the
city of Constantinople and its suburbs. The Roman Church, through
its Jesuit missionaries, had carried on the work of proselyting the
Armenians for centuries, and she had thousands of adherents. As a
Church she had had her experience with the Reformation in the West.
She was alarmed and made the first attempt to stop its progress in the
East. The patriarch of the Roman Catholic Armenians publicly denounced
the missionaries and their books in 1836. His evil example was followed
four years later by the Greek and Armenian patriarchs of Constantinople.
Thus the spirit of hatred and persecution was instilled by their
respective representatives into the minds and hearts of different
communities. But this movement being mostly among the Armenians, their
patriarch took a more active part in issuing anathemas and sending them
to the provinces, and he caused them to be read in all the churches.
The Armenian Church was sorely wounded by the Roman Church and its
missionaries. The national church meant and still means to the
Armenians a national unity, and a separation from the Church was
considered a division in the nation. Ever since the Armenians lost
their independence, they were known as a religious community in the
Turkish empire and their patriarch as the representative of the whole
people. The patriarch, as the head of the nation, and other leaders,
therefore, thought the suppression of this evangelical work might be
a prevention of such a division as had taken place in the case of the
followers of the Roman missionaries in 1830. The patriarch and his
advisers, who took violent measures of persecution against those who
favored and labored for the reformation of the Church, unhappily were
not aware of the fact that the intentions of the missionaries of the
American Board, were very different from those of the missionaries of
the Roman Church. The following is the statement written at the time by
Rev. Dr. Goodell:
“We ourselves, at this place, have nothing to do with the Church, its
dogma, ceremonies, and superstitions.... Nor do we make any attempt to
establish a new Church, to raise a new party. We disclaim everything
of the kind. We tell them frankly, you have sects enough among you
already, and we have no design of setting up a new one, or of pulling
down your churches, or drawing members from them in order to build
ours over.”[86]
And we find this policy adhered to in the case of the brethren in
Nicomedia. The bishop, priests, and the leading men of that city formed
a council, and this council drew up a new confession of faith.
“Thus all who were suspected of Protestantism were asked to
acknowledge by affixing thereunto their signatures. Those who would
refuse to do so were to be anathematized and expelled from the Church.
As soon as Rev. Dwight and Dr. Goodell were informed of the Council’s
proceedings they advised the brethren not to separate themselves from
the Armenian communion, saying that, if they did so, the work would
not advance so rapidly.”[87]
In 1843 a young Armenian embraced Mohammedanism. But he became a prey
to the remorse of his conscience for his apostacy. He, therefore,
renounced Mohammedanism and reconfessed Christianity. He was seized
upon and beheaded in the streets of Constantinople by the Turkish
authorities, and his corpse was exposed to the public gaze for several
days, as an insult to Christianity. This event aroused the indignation
of the European ambassadors, who, through the English ambassador, Sir
Stratford Canning, demanded and extorted from the Sultan the following
written pledge: “The sublime Porte engages to take effectual measures
to prevent henceforward the execution and putting to death of the
Christian who is an apostate.”
The imprudent conduct of the patriarch, Bishop Matteos, by his
anathemas and excommunicating those who were favorably disposed, and
were endeavoring to reform the Church, exposed them to all manner of
maltreatment. They “were stoned in the streets, unjustly imprisoned,
ejected from their shops, invaded and plundered in their houses,
bastinadoed and abandoned by their friends.” These persecutions were
severe and extended into the provinces wherever there were those who
loved the cause of reformation. The unwise course pursued by the
patriarch to prevent separation by persecution indeed hastened the
division in the church. Vartabed M. Muradian’s statement in regard to
Bishop Matteos’ conduct is as follows:
“Patriarch Matteos had already begun religious controversies with the
Protestant missionaries, these same controversies were travails of a
new eruption. Those inclined to Protestantism were about to appear
and the anathematizing course taken by Matteos very materially aided
the purpose of the Protestant missionaries, because to persecute is
to spread. And, behold, thus on the one hand the inconsiderateness of
those inclined to Protestantism, and on the other hand the imprudent
conduct of Patriarch Matteos, caused a number of our people to depart
from the maternal bosom of the church and adhere to Protestantism,
which forms a distinct body, choosing for itself a separate civil
head.”[88]
The persecutions and the consequent sufferings of the people were
severe, unnecessary, and unjustifiable. Yet whether there were
sufficient reasons for a separate organizations it is difficult to say.
The missionaries, however, yielding to the desire of those who wished
to form a separate organization, gathered them together, forty in
number, and constituted July 1st, 1846, the first Evangelical Armenian
Church of Constantinople. On the following Sabbath Mr. Apisoghom
Khachadurian was ordained by the missionaries and installed the pastor
of this new church.
On the 20th of July, 1846, another church was organized at Nicomedia
and during that summer two more churches were organized, one at
Ada-Bazar and the other at Trebizond. These organizations were followed
by others in different parts of the country.
The Protestant Armenians, thus organized into separate churches, formed
a new community, yet were under the jurisdiction of the patriarch and
up to 1847 not quite free from molestation and privation. “In the
temporary absence of Sir Stratford Canning, Lord Cawley negotiated the
matter with the government, and on the 15th of November, 1847, the
grand vizier issued a paper declaring that the ‘Christian subjects
of the Ottoman Government professing Protestantism would constitute
a separate community, with all the rights and privileges permitted
in their temporal or spiritual concern on the part of the patriarch,
monks, or priests of other sects.’”. In November, 1850, a decree was
issued proclaiming the professors of all religions equal in the eye
of the law. The Protestants then were organized as a distinct civil
community, having equal religious rights with the older Christian
bodies.
Up to this time the work of reformation spread and progressed with
wonderful rapidity, though through persecutions and privations. The
readiness of those who knew the truth to spread it; the eagerness of
the people to receive the truth; the unconsciously employed means
of those who tried to stop this movement, by trying so to do thus
spreading it, are well condensed in the following paragraphs:
“When the patriarch had hurried Bedros, the Vartabed, out of the city
for his Protestant tendencies, and Vartabed had gone distributing
books and preaching throughout the whole region of Aleppo and Aintab.
When he had sent priest Vartanes a prisoner to the monastery of
Marash, and then banished him to Cæsarea, Vartanes had first awakened
the monks, and then preached the gospel all the way to Cæsarea.
“The missionaries wisely availed themselves of this rising interest in
tours for preaching, conversing, and distributing religious treatises.
Messrs. Powers, Johnson, Van Lennex, Smith, Peabody, Schneider,
Goodell, Everett, and Benjamin, pushed forth to Tintab, Aleppo,
Brousa, Harpoot, Sivas, Diarbekir, Cæsarea, and various other places
through the empire.
“They soon found that they were in the midst of one of the most
extraordinary religious movements of modern times, silent, and
sometimes untraceable, but potent and pervasive. In every important
town of the empire where there were Armenians, there were found
to be as early as 1849, one or more lovers of evangelical truth.
But it was no causeless movement. The quiet working of the ‘little
leaven’ was traceable almost from its source by indubitable signs.
It was a notable sight to see when, in 1838, the Vartabed and the
leading men of Orta Keuy, on the Bosphorus, where the missionaries
first gained access to the Armenians, went and removed the pictures
from the village church. It was another landmark when, in 1842, the
fervor of the converts not only filled the city with rumors of the
new doctrines, but, after a season of special prayer, held in a
neighboring valley, sent forth priest Vartanes on a missionary tour
into the heart of Asia Minor. A still more significant fact was when,
in that year and the next, the Armenian women were effectually reached
and roused, till family worship began in many a household, and a
female seminary at Pera became (in 1845) a necessity. The brethren
had observed the constant increase of the inquiries, often from a
distance, and they had found, even in 1843, such a demand for their
books as the press at Smyrna was unable to supply. In many places and
at Nicomedia, Adabar and Aintab, books and tracts began the work.
“The preaching services at Constantinople would be occasionally
attended by individuals from four or five other towns. At Erzroom
one Sabbath (February, 1846), there were attendants from six
different places. The seminary for young men at Bebek (a suburb of
Constantinople) drew visitors from great distances and from all
quarters, as far as Alexandria, St. Petersburg, and the Euphrates. The
native brethren also had been engaged in disseminating the truth, and
the first awakenings at Killis, Kessab, and Eodosta, for example, were
due to their labors.
“From this time forth the enterprise became too broad even to trace in
this rapid way. If the whole movement shall ever be suitably recorded
the history of this reformation will be second in interest to no other
than has ever been written. There are scores and scores of villages,
each of which would furnish material for a volume, and multitudes
of cases that recall the fervor, faith, and fortitude of apostolic
times.”[89]
Although a decree issued in November, 1850, proclaimed the Protestants
equal in the eye of the law, and accorded to them protection from
persecutions, yet the condition of the brethren was very miserable.
Many of the younger brethren were disinherited by their parents, and
thrown out of employment by their employers, for their espousal of
the cause of reformation. The anathemas of the patriarch upon “the
heretics” and those who would have any dealings with them, shut out the
Protestants from the society of, and the business intercourses with,
the people. Many, therefore, had to sell and sacrifice their properties
for the necessities of life, and fell into abject poverty and had
almost reached the verge of starvation.
Russia’s desire and demand to establish a protectorate over the Greek
Christians in the Turkish empire, and the latter government’s refusal,
led these two powers into, what is generally known in history, as the
Crimean war. England and France were the allies of the Turk in that
war, 1853. This Crimean war also greatly added to the misery of the
Protestant community and threatened the existence of the little flock.
But the ingenuity of the Rev. Dr. Cyrus Hamlin, the noble missionary,
did ameliorate the condition of the Protestants. He established
industries, especially the mill and bakery, where he found sufficient
work for them to do; he also was able to build a few churches, in which
these brethren might worship. These churches were greatly needed, and
he had some balance left in hand after building them.[90]
Some good people thought that “the Crimean war was overruled for the
furtherance of the Gospel by becoming the occasion, if not the actual
means, for securing another concession from the Turkish government on
the subject of religious liberty, a new Magna Charter for the Christian
subjects of the Porte.” Some regarded this edict (the Hatti Humayaun)
as a complete grant of freedom to all Christians or Mohammedans, to
follow the dictates of their consciences without any molestation
whatever. A few high-sounding sentences from it will show what great
contentment it would have given to the subjects of the Porte if it had
been meant to be fulfilled:
“Every distinction or designation tending to make any class whatever
of the subjects of my empire inferior to another class on account of
their religion, language, or race, shall be forever effaced from the
administrative protocol.
“As all forms of religion are and shall be freely professed in my
dominions, no subject of my empire shall be hindered in the exercise
of the religion that he professes, nor shall be in any way annoyed on
this account. NO ONE SHALL BE COMPELLED TO CHANGE HIS RELIGION.”
It is, however, nothing uncommon with the sultans and other officials
of the Turkish government to promise a good deal, with the full
determination not to fulfill the least.
“By the terms of the treaty of 1856 (signed at Paris), Turkey was
bound in the face of the world to redress the inveterate evils and
abuses of her government, and to extend to all her subjects the
blessings of civil and religious freedom. There was accordingly
promulgated the Hatt-y-Humayoun of 1856, in which the principles of
reform embodied in the Tanzimat were renewed and extended, but the
edict, like those which preceded it, remained in effect null and
void. The grievances and wrongs endured since that time, especially
by the Christian population, the perversion of justice, the gross
administrative corruption, furnish a sufficient commentary of the
futility of the attempted or promised reform of the Porte.”[91]
Had public opinion in Great Britain not been outraged by the Bulgarian
massacre, the Conservative government of Lord Beaconsfield would
have given armed support to the Turks even in 1877, in spite of “the
perversion of justice, the gross administrative corruption” of the
Turkish government, and “the grievances and wrongs endured since that
time, especially by the Christian population” of the Porte.[92]
The number of the reformed churches in ten years increased to
thirty, organized at different places in the empire. And it was only
twenty-one years after the organization of the first Reformed Armenian
Church, that the late Rev. Dr. H. J. Van Lennep reported, before the
Evangelical Alliance at Amsterdam, Holland:
“There were now (1867) fifty-six churches, with two thousand
adherents.” And he adds, “The use of such means [for reformation]
soon produced a marked effect not so much upon the volatile Greek as
upon the sober-minded Armenian, and evangelical doctrines were soon
spreading among the latter with amazing power and rapidity. Providence
raised from among the people men of eloquence, power, and influence,
whose labors were wonderfully blessed; and great numbers soon rejoiced
in the precious doctrine ‘Christ crucified.’ The young converts, full
of faith and the Holy Ghost, went about lighting the torch of truth
and salvation throughout the land.”
It is impossible, and incompatible with our present purpose, to give
a fuller account of the grand work of reformation, which is bound to
triumph and reconquer the countries once under the sway of the power of
the gospel of our Lord.
Twenty-five years ago, there were one hundred and ten churches and
eleven thousand and ninety-five members, seventy-four ordained
ministers and one hundred and twenty-nine preachers, and eighty-five
other helpers, and two hundred and three places for stated preaching,
with thirty-one thousand six hundred and eighteen average attendants
to services, twenty thousand six hundred Sabbath school scholars and
a community of forty-five thousand Protestants, who had contributed
$48,941 for all purposes during the year (1890-1891).
Within the last twenty-five years the missionary work has been steadily
growing in spite of hindrances, persecutions, massacres and forced
conversions to Mohammedanism by the Turks. The following brief table
of statistics for 1914 may give an idea how the work was progressing
before the terrible war of 1915:
The number of stations and out stations 370
The total number of missionaries 162
The total native workers 1204
Congregations 272
Organized churches 137
Communicants 13,891
Armenian Protestants 50,900
Sunday Schools 270
Sunday School Membership 29,686
Schools (total) Colleges, 8; Theological
Schools, 3; Boarding, etc. 426
Total students 25,134
Hospitals and Dispensaries 19
Patients 39,503
Treatments 134,357
Native Contributions $192,127