With the seventeen-hundred year anniversary of our Armenian Church less than a year 
away, all Armenians should be looking forward with happy anticipation for this historic 
Christian event.  But in bare bone reality, this will not be a true Christian event for our 
Armenians in North America because our religiously one Armenian churches over here 
are disjointed.   And regardless of how many times our outdated opposing politicals in 
league with some of our self-seeking religious clerics on either side, try to pass this 
hypocritical division off as being only administrative, I have to ask:  How many of us 
really believe this?  Or better still:  Is it Christian?  


In the past, through centuries of wars and deprivation, our only bridge to the future was 
the Armenian Church.  Not a "religiously one, but administratively divided," Armenian 
church as we have been led to believe, but a united Armenian Church forever standing 
between our people and total extinction, oftentimes at the cost of tragic sacrifices.  And 
no matter how many times the flame of Armenia came to near extinction, it was our 
heroic Armenian Church that helped to keep the flame of our Armenian heritage alive.


A few short years ago, before Armenia and our Mother See regained their independence, 
our Coalition for Church Unity (an ad hoc committee made up of Armenians from both 
sides of the fence), was well on its way toward bringing our religious circus under one 
tent.  But as fate would have it, whether for lack of trying harder or because we were not 
able to keep the naysayers at bay, we fell miserably short of the mark.  And though these 
people were successful in thwarting our efforts for church unity and who sadistically felt 
that they did something patriotic, let me say that we all lost miserably and we’re still 
losing today.  


As Armenians, the most popular force we face in America today is assimilation.  Being a 
massacred people, we’ve often referred to this phenomena as the "White Massacre."   It 
doesn’t maim us ior butcher us into extinction as the bloody ottomans tried to do, but the 
end result, though more humane, is even more permanent because the victims are our 
youth and through them, our Armenian future.


But let me also add that even if we were able to reunite our churches, it would not be the 
end to all of our problems.  Assimilation is too formidable and too complex a 
counter-force to conquer from one direction.  But church unity is and has always been the 
only road to follow for long term survival and our tormented history proves it.  


Financially, it would put an end to the insane duplication and maintenance of divided 
churches which for the last sixty-seven years has been depriving our communities of their 
much needed financial resources. 


Intellectually, it would give us a larger brain pool to draw from.


Socially, we would have more interaction among our youth, but even more so because 
they would ultimately become a larger part of an ever expanding Armenian Apostolic 
Christian community,


For years, we’ve been talking about building community centers.  If we weren’t too busy 
building more divided churches or a community center for each of our present day 
"religiously one, but administratively divided" churches, we could easily build one large 
center for an entire united Armenian community.   In time, we might even have affordable 
senior citizen complexes to go along with it.  


Our reunited Armenian communities with their new community centers, could cultivate 
more community festivals along with more participation in cultural, social and athletic 
programs.   We might even bring the old hanteses and picnics back, and in all cases, 
always encouraging total family participation.  We would have evening programs for our 
communities.   We could start libraries, schedule lectures and cultural classes including 
Armenian cuisine, music, dancing, and whatever else our imaginations allowed.


In the area of education, we would support all Armenian day schools, offer students 
counseling, set up student loan programs, and even offer scholarships.  Of course, all this 
may look insurmountable at present because we’re not in charge of our future.  And 
because of this, we’ve been losing our momentum because we have been forfeiting our 
God-given right to cultivate our tomorrows as we should have been doing for the last 
sixty-seven years.  Let’s not kid ourselves, we’ve been entrusting our Armenian future to 
the wrong people.  Whether political or religious, they continue milking the same cows 
while the calves look for greener pastures.


Our Lord said,"Render until Caesar the things which are Caesar’s, and until God the 
things that are God’s."   


Our Lord did not consider rendering "unto Caesar the things which are Caesar’s" a 
problem, but He did distinguish between what we should render unto Caesar and what we 
should render unto God.  


Joseph Vosbikian