I would like to thank Elizabeth S. (Noorigian) Simonds for her "An Open Letter to Joseph 
Vosbikian," which appeared in the May 23, 2998 issue of TAR Int’l.  Her remembrances 
of the old days and the Vosbikian Band were both nostalgic and very refreshing.  I would 
also like to assure her that as much as she enjoyed dancing to our music, we also 
genuinely enjoyed playing it.  It was a mutual appreciation society.  But the most 
important aspect of her remembrance was the cultural unity it created among our younger 
and older generations as well as our divided churches and communities.  Fortunately, 
those self-acclaimed Armenian purists with their misguided sense of authority and 
censorship regarding what’s Armenian and what’s Turkish, weren’t prevalent in those 
days.  And though our churches and communities were divided, our festive zeal for 
Armenian merriment was never challenged.  We enjoyed what our forbearers enjoyed 
without restrictions or guidelines superimposed by those misguided intellects who have 
been incubated in hate and division.  


As for Elizabeth’s account of the senseless disunity being caused in her Las Vegas 
community by ARF politicals, I can only say, So what else is new?  As I have stated time 
and time again in many different ways: The problem with the ARF is not in their 
proclaimed ideology (which they seldom if ever adhere to), it’s in the way they do 
business.  From what I have seen of this new breed, their only objective is to dominate 
and to control.  Ms Simonds’ account is a textbook summary of how the ARF usually 
operates.  From the way they generally do business, it would seem that Armenian love, 
fellowship, and trust do not exist anywhere outside of their organization.  For them it’s 
always open season.  Anything that they can do to provoke an incident in order to gain 
advantage is considered acceptable.

          
Today, one of the most disarming and debilitating qualities that exists among our people 
is distrust.  And perhaps one of the major factors that started this decay was the Tourian 
assassination and the politicizing of our Armenian Apostolic Church in 1933.  And 
perhaps the most important factor keeping this decay alive today is the See of Cilicia, the 
new kid on the block.  Before the ARF took control, Cilicia was content to stay within 
their Middle Eastern jurisdiction.  However, now with the politically sympathetic 
Catholicos Aram I at the helm, they seem to be trying to break into Etchmiadzin’s 
jurisdiction.  One might say, if Cilicia is religiously one with Etchmiadzin, then where’s 
the problem?  The problem is with the ARF because they do not want to relinquish 
control of Cilicia or anything else they have control of.


Before the fall of the Iron Curtain, both Etchmiadzin and Cilicia were being influenced by 
their opposing in-house political factions.  Since the fall of the Iron Curtain and the 
emergence of a free and independent Armenia, only Cilicia’s politicals remain functional 
in the Diaspora.  With Etchmiadzin and Armenia finally free from communist 
subjugation, one would think that for the sake of survival, a stronger and more unified 
Armenian Diaspora is mandatory--that Cilicia would gladly accept and acknowledge the 
total reunification of our North American Armenian churches back under Etchmiadzin 
rule.   But as we now know, after thirty odd years of church-unity negotiations between 
our Prelacy and Diocese, Cilicia’s intentions were not for total reunification.  I believe if 
Elizabeth Simonds were to look at the clandestine way that our ARF-influenced Cilician 
Prelacy handled their end of these negotiations, she would find some similarity in the way 
Cilicia and the ARF politicals are operating in her Las Vegas Armenian community.


As for church-unity, I believe that the majority of our people truly want to see our 
churches and communities reunited and an end to all of  this double dealing hocus pocus.  
But as long as the ARF politicals remain entrenched in the Prelacy church and as along as 
the majority of their parishioners allow the tail to keep wagging the dog, church-unity will 
never happen.


Joseph Vosbikian