Since Michael Haratunian’s frank, honest, and down-to-earth commentary,  "My 
Generation Failed the Church," hit the streets in the June 5, 1999 issue of TAR, Int’l, I’ve 
been hearing some grumbling emanating from members of the St. Gregory Church of 
Philadelphia.  For those who are not aware, St. Gregory of Philadelphia is the Prelacy 
Church of which I was a member at one time.  And since I was also a member of the 
Coalition for Church Unity and witness to the same disheartening politically motivated 
debacles that Mr. Haratunian described in his commentary, I long ago stopped attending 
church services because I couldn’t stomach the one-sided politically influenced brand of 
Christianity that my Armenian Church was preaching. 

	
My commentary of February 27, 1986 entitled, "The Unity Issue and Election ‘86 at St. 
Gregory’s Church, Philadelphia," describes how the ARF influenced the final outcome of 
that election.  Their main purpose at the time was to stop me from becoming a member of 
St. Gregory’s National Representative Assembly as a "Church Unity" advocate.  And to 
this day, I still haven’t figured out the evil that those "armchair fedayees" saw in the 
reunification of our divided Armenian churches in North America.


When I look back, I visualize the many community centers we could have built, or the 
sorely needed senior citizen units we could have also built, or the scholarships for 
deserving students that never happened, or an international network of progress 
perpetuating professionals.  And the list goes on and on.


Instead we opted to build more and more half-empty divided churches in areas where 
adequate churches and communities were already in place.   And with all of the frenzy 
toward building more and more divided Armenian Apostolic churches, we find many of 
them today struggling to survive.   And as a result, instead of in-house church 
organizations striving toward strengthening community ties, especially among their 
youth, we find them degraded to the sole purpose of finding ways to generate revenue in 
order to keep their churches financially solvent.  What happened to all those anti-unity 
politicals who helped torpedo church unity?


I got involved with the Coalition for Church Unity in 1984, and since that time, have 
accumulated mountains of documented material pinpointing how our archaic political 
adversaries torpedoed church unity.  Was their true purpose religiously motivated or was 
it for the purpose of maintaining their own political empowerment?  I’ll leave it up to 
them to justify in whatever medieval way they choose to pacify their conscience.


There’s an old Armenian saying: "Eshuh pakhelen vairchuh akhorin tooreh me coatzer."  
(Don’t close the barn door after the jackass gets away.)  Is it too late?  Michael seems to 
have some optimism left and I certainly hope he’s right.


Someday, I may decide to sit down and write a book on this subject.  God knows, I have 
enough material, but in the meantime, I would like to clarify something.  I do not think 
my generation failed the church; I think the church failed us.


Joseph Vosbikian