It was an interesting question that generated a good discussion consisting of 575 comments. It was good, in that, it was actually a thoughtful and civil discussion and didn’t decay into rude slanders, the dropping of f-bombs, and such.
The responses to the question were generally in the yes or the no camp.
My first inclination was yes… I mean no… I mean maybe… let me ponder this question.
The vast majority of Armenians I know are associated with the Armenian Church. Our identities as Armenians are rooted and revolve around this association. Even the least religious amongst us, takes pride in pointing out that we are the first Christian nation in the world. We all know the history from the apostles Saints Thaddeus and Bartholomew coming to Armenia to plant the seeds of Christianity.
We know the story of Saint Krikor Lusavorich (Gregory the Illuminator) after and King Drtad. The King viewed Krikor, at first, as a threat to the nation and his rule. He had Krikor imprisoned in a pit for at least twelve years. When the King ailed, Krikor was called to his side, and restored the King’s health. The King decided that Christianity should be the religion of the nation and decreed such in 301 AD.
Since then, the Armenians have been devoted to their Christian faith and have both fought valiantly and suffered because of it. We were tested in 402 AD by the Persians, who wanted us to conquer us and impose Zoroastrianism upon us. Under the leadership of Vartan Mamigonian the Armenian fought the Persians on the Avarayr Plain. Approximately, 66,000 Armenians faced a superior force of 250,000. We fought valiantly but were beaten by the Persians. In the end, with the Treaty of Navarsart, the Persian allowed Armenians to keep their faith because of the fervor and bravery in which they fought for it. This event solidified the Armenian Church and the Armenian People to this day.
As Islam swept through the Middle East, Armenian were steadfast in their Christian faith and were subjugated and treated as second class citizens, for the most part, in part due to our dedication to our faith. Of course, this led to the 1915 Genocide and the recent wars with Azerbaijan.
Needless to say, the above stories are the simplifications all Armenians are taught in Sunday School. The realities are more nuanced and complicated. But this relationship of the Armenian Church and the Armenian people covers centuries and the two are almost inseparable.
This is the basis for answering NO to both questions.
But that is limiting to our people and to our culture. Surely, the church is a huge part of Armenian life. In the diaspora, our Armenian life (well my Armenian life for sure) has been centered around churches and community centers that are always part of a church building or complex. Social, cultural, and philanthropic organizations meet at church/community centers as do political parties.
We have to consider that there was an Armenia before 301 AD. That Armenia and those Armenians were not Christian. One of my responses in the FB discussion was “Pretty sure the mythical founder of our nation, Haig, was not Christrian.” An acquaintance, who is a deacon at the church I grew up in, thoughtly responded, “Haig wasn’t Christian because Jesus was born 2000 years ago.” My response to him was “Exactly.” So, in another sense, it is possible to answer YES to both parts of the question.
What if you are Christian and not part of the Armenian Church? Well, in the late days of the Ottoman Empire, missionaries came to Turkey to convert the Moslem Turks. Finding little success and serious threats of death, the missionaries gave up on that idea and focused on educating and converting the Armenian peasants from their Apostolic/Orthodox faith to the Protestant faiths they represented. This caused great division in Armenian families. As late as the 1990s, my father’s first cousins were disparaging my paternal great-grandmother Maryam who was martyred in 1915 for being Protestant. To this day, a famous Armenian musician I know, speaks despicably about Armenian Protestants. Really?
I always say, during the Genocide the Turks had one criterion, if you are Armenian you qualified to be killed. We are we way more selective on who is Armenian amongst ourselves?
How about our disbelievers (my last name might qualify as one of these) and agnostics? Are they Armenian or not Armenian? Some will say no, I say why not. If they try to preserve language and culture, that should qualify them as Armenian. They follow the Turkish criterion stated above they are, therefore, Armenian to them. That is good enough for me.
There is no such thing as a pure Armenian. Over the centuries of the blending of genetics in the region, who could we ever define such a thing. Based on this reasoning, I include as Armenian those who were not born or raised as Armenian but married into our culture and possibly our faith. Some of these wonderful folks are amongst the best Armenians I know.
I know a lovely, vibrant, lady in New Jersey. She was adopted into a wonderful devoted to all things Armenian family. She is more Armenian in terms of culture and the Armenian Church than most Armenians I know. She suffered stupid comments growing-up about “not really being Armenian.”
A nation is made up of people. These days there is less homogeneity than ever due to open borders and people migrating like they never before. A nationality is also made up of people. This can be different than the ethnic make-up of the citizens of a nation. We might believe that nationalities are more homogeneous. Witness the United States. People identify themselves as American no matter what their ethnic heritage.
Go to Armenia. It is a real country that has all of these dimensions. As a real country of a few million, there are patriots and people who just live there, there are Christians and non-believers, there are mosques, there are honorable people and criminals, there are hetero and homosexuals. You are likely to find similar proportions of behaviors and traits that you can find in almost every country. Oddly, I met people there that view diasporan Armenians are foreigners, odars. Put that in your holier than thou pipe and smoke it.
So, a nationality can be defined ethnically, by citizenship, language, religion, and culture. How do differentiate? How do we judge? By differentiating and judging, are we not taking a holier than thou kind of perspective?
I thought the person that posted this fellow, Ara Kassabian, was baiting us. But I think not. He posted another question the next day, December 12, that he called a follow-up post: What do the Muslim, Turkish-speaking hidden Armenians have to do to be accepted as Armenians? This is another good question and an excellent follow-up. Can we tell these folks they are not Armenian, if they want to be? Read My Grandmother by Fethiye Çetin and tell me how you would answer this question.
I am sure we would answer these questions differently than our grandparents who survived the Genocide. I want to say, based on those that I knew growing up, they would be more black and white about this all and less forgiving to those who forsook the Armenian Church to become Moslem and Turkish. But, I cannot say this definitively as that generation could definitely surprise you with their view of the world.
The answer to these questions for me is somehow rooted in the dichotomy of our national mountain lying outside the borders of our actual nation.
These questions posed by Ara were very good. We should all ponder them
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