Reject all forms of genocide’: Head of Armenian church in Lebanon visits Whitinsville
NORTHBRIDGE ― About 100 parishioners gathered Wednesday afternoon at the Armenian Apostolic Church of Whitinsville to attend a sermon led by Aram I, the head of the Catholicosate of the Armenian Church, a rare visit from the church’s headquarters in Lebanon during which he discussed climate change and the Armenian genocide.
Whitinsville is one of many stops for the high cleric during a two-week visit in the United States.
“It gives me special joy to reach the parishioners of this church,” Aram I said in English as he spoke to parishioners during an hour-long sermon.
Aram I, who is 77, arrived at the church around 4:30 p.m., when a state police detail led his entourage as it streamed through Church Street, stopping in front of the Whitinsville church where he was greeted with bread and salt by the family of the church’s pastor, the Rev. Mikael Der Kosrofian, a welcoming gesture in the Armenian tradition.
Aram I last visited the Whitinsville church in 1997, two years after his appointment as Catholicos of the Armenian Catholicosate of the Great House of Cilicia.
Led into the church by deacons amid the smoke of incenses, Aram I started his sermon in Armenian, and then in accented, yet rich English.
“The cosmos is a sacred reality,” Aram I said. “Unfortunately, today, human being distorted creation, what we call now climate change. Instead of preserving the sacredness of the creation, human being corrupted, distorted, destroyed the sacredness, the holiness of creation.”
Approached by a Telegram & Gazette reporter as he posed to take photos with parishioners, Aram I said the world has gone through “rapid and radical change” since his last visit in Whitinsville, also citing the renewal of the war in Nagorno-Karabakh, a formerly Armenian-controlled breakaway region of Azerbaijan.
Aram I drew similarities between the current allegations of ethnic cleansing and the genocide from 1915 to 1917 when 1.5 million Armenians were killed in the Ottoman Empire.
“This genocide, in all its forms and expressions, should have no place in the life of humanity,” Aram I said. “The genocide is a crime against humanity and the crime against God.
“We have to reject all forms of genocide, wherever and whatever it happens.”
Those attending the Whitinsville service included state lawmakers Sen. Ryan C. Fattman, R-Sutton, and Rep. David K. Muradian Jr., R-Grafton.
Muradian, who is of Armenian descent, joined Fattman in presenting Aram I with a citation to mark his visit.
Clergy members of other denominations of the Christian faith also attended the sermon, among them the Rev. Tomasz J. Borkowski, the pastor of St. Patrick Parish in Whitinsville, which is part of the Roman Catholic denomination.
“The big significance is that the Christian community is able to get together in prayer, no matter what traditions,” Borkowski said. “I came also in support of the Armenian community. I’m originally from Poland, so as an immigrant, you show support for another community of immigrants, as well.”
Local family Joan-Seda and Armenag Antranigian and their twin 1-year-old daughters Sosie and Taline attended Aram I’s visit, saying the visit held great importance for them as parishioners of the church.
They were among the many families who posed for a photo with the high cleric throughout the afternoon.
“This is definitely a tradition that we want to pass down to the younger generations,” Joan-Seda, 34, said. “I feel like it’s so important to keep the Armenian traditions alive, and it’s something that we want to share with our kids, and maybe someday they’ll share with theirs.”
Aram I was born in Lebanon and holds degrees from the Ecumenical Institute of Bossey, Geneva, Switzerland, the American University of Beirut and Near East School of Theology, Oxford University, and Fordham University in New York.
Aram I started this year’s tour at churches of the Armenian Apostolic denomination in New York Oct. 1, then visited churches in Rhode Island and Springfield, before stopping in Worcester at the Holy Trinity Armenian Apostolic Church Tuesday, according to Richard Kanarian, vice president of the executive council of the Armenian Apostolic Churches.
Over the next few days Aram I will fly to St. Louis, where he will continue visits to local Armenian Apostolic Churches, Kanarian said.
Last year, Aram I held an opening prayer as a guest chaplain at the beginning of a session of the U.S. House of Representatives in Washington, D.C., during a multi-legged visit throughout the East Coast that Kanarian said did not include Massachusetts.
