(Revised from 1/30/01 Commentary)


No doubt, all of our Armenians are sincere about their political and religious convictions.  
And, no doubt, many among us also consider ourselves a part of America’s mainstream.  
And, of course, the dregs of discrimination in America have also dissipated dramatically 
since our people started arriving in America after the 1915 massacres.  But, on the 
negative side, this has also accelerated assimilation which in turn has thwarted us from 
holding onto many of our beautiful inbred customs.


As to our past, how many among us are left who experienced the hardships of those early 
years when our people first came to America three generations ago?  From what I 
remember of my childhood, it wasn’t a "cakewalk."   There weren’t many jobs to speak 
of, and for those who were fortunate enough to find work, they were of the types paying 
the lowest wages, hardest labor, and longest hours.  And as far as America was 
concerned, our people were not only starving Armenians, but they were also looked upon 
as undesirable foreigners.


America’s streets weren’t paved with gold as they were told and climbing out of 
America’s poverty class was no easy job either.  To begin with, they didn’t understand the 
host culture, they didn’t speak the language, and they were looked down on.  But thanks 
to their desperation, their heroic make up, the ever-improving laws of the land, and the 
help of many fraternal and evangelical organizations who were aware of the 1915 
Genocide and the hardships our people had endured, they survived.   Overall, it took over 
a generation and World War II before they finally put the term starving Armenians behind 
them and came of age.


Meantime, as though all of their past sufferings and losses during the massacres weren’t 
enough, there were also some well-intended but short-sighted politicals with unresolved 
issues among them which eventually triggered the murder of an Archbishop and, in turn, 
finally divided our religiously one Armenian churches and communities in two.


Today, the last remaining scar left from our first generation Armenian-American past are 
our divided Armenian churches and communities throughout North America.  And even 
though there is more interrelation between today’s religiously one but administratively 
divided Armenian churches, the walls of separation are still there.  And since church 
unity threatens the prevailing positions among some of our present-day political and 
religious hierarchy, they condescendingly submit to nonreligious divisive influences fully 
realizing that what they are doing is not in accordance with the 1700-year-old mandates 
of our Christian Armenian Apostolic faith.


Since 1984, I have made my feelings public about the 68-year-old division of our 
Armenian churches and communities.  Accordingly, I have not been attending Armenian 
church services since that time.  However, I do attend christenings, marriages, and funeral 
services in an Armenian church, but this is only out of my loving respect for the many 
Armenian families and friends whom I know and who are still involved.   And even 
though I still have some affinity left for my Armenian Apostolic faith, I cannot bring 
myself to be a part of it while our churches and communities remain divided.


From time to time, family members and friends have called me, "gorsuvudz" (lost).  And 
to tell the truth, this saddens me because I feel gorsuvudz, but I also feel that the united 
Armenian Apostolic Church I was once dedicated to and involved in is also gorsuvudz.


Joseph Vosbikian