IXTHE REFORMED CHURCH

It has seemed to the writer unnecessary in the preceding pages to say much about the unimportant ceremonies, forms and certain superstitious practices which have crept into the Armenian church. But it has been admitted that, owing to various causes and corrupt influences of both so called Christian and non-Christian nations about them, the Armenians were unable to preserve the noble apostolic Church in its simplicity and purity.

A brief reference already has been made to the emissaries and missionaries of the Roman Catholic Church, who early, though unsuccessfully, endeavored to bring the Armenian Church under the influence and control of the popes of Rome. Yet it may not be considered a complete failure, especially after the establishment of the Mukhetarist convent and the activities of its monks, who edited many ancient Armenian works of those who were leaning toward the papal views. As the result about one hundred thousand Armenians cut loose from the Mother Church and formed the Catholic Armenian Church. This separation was completed by the appointment in 1830 of the Sultan of Turkey a patriarch over theCatholic Armenians. This missionary work has not advanced much since.

A few centuries ago news traveled a great deal slower than it does now. The great Reformation in Europe, which shook the foundations of some governments, and shaped the destiny of the nations in the west, was not expected to die out without some little stir in the east. An Armenian priest wrote a book in 1760, praising the great reformer, Martin Luther, and his work, and called the attention of the people to the need for reformation in their own church. It is a pity that his book was never printed. It was, however, more or less, circulated and did its good work. The publication and circulation of the Bible by the British and Russian Bible Societies succeeded the above incident in the beginning of the last century. These events paved the way for a greater movement.

The American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions was organized at Bradford, Mass., June 29, 1810.Mr.Parsons “on his first visit to Jerusalem in 1821 encountered some Armenian pilgrims, whose interesting conversation drew from him the suggestion of a mission to Armenia itself. ‘We shall rejoice,’ said they, ‘and all will rejoice when they arrive.’”

Several Armenian clergymen espoused the cause of reformation in 1826 at Beirut, Syria. Two of them, Bishop Dionysius and Krikor Vartabed, like Paul and Barnabas, traveled through Asia Minor preaching the Gospel to the people with great acceptance.“These brethren assured the missionaries that the minds of the Armenian people were wonderfully inclined towards the pure gospel, and that should preachers go among them doubtless thousands would be ready to receive the truth. They themselves wrote letters to their countrymen, which excited no little attention.”[83]

The publication and circulation of several thousand copies of the Scriptures and their being eagerly read by the leading men, the labors of these and other Armenian ecclesiastics, and especially the training school for priests at Constantinople, which was committed to the charge of Peshtimaljian, “a profound scholar, a theologian, and an humble student of the Bible—a sort of an Oriental Melancthon, even in his timidity”—were indubitable signs of a wonderful reformation.

Revs. W. Goodell and Bird were appointed by the board to join the Syrian Mission, which was established byRev.Pliny Fisk andRev.Levi Parsons, who had left America in 1819. On account of the Greek revolution then in progress, Christians everywhere, and especially in the seaports, were treated by the Turks with the greatest barbarity as they are now.Dr.Goodell wrote from Beirut, May 15, 1826:

“Human beings, whose guilt is no greater than that of their proud oppressors, are condemned without a trial, their flesh trembling for fear, their religion blasphemed, their Saviour insulted, their comforts despoiled,their lives threatened, and their bodies filled with pain, and deeply marked with the blows inflicted by Turkish barbarity.”

The condition of affairs compelled the American and English missionaries and their Armenian assistants to repair for protection under the British flag to the Island of Malta. HereDr.Goodell and his co-workers completed the translation of the New Testament into the Armeno-Turkish in 1830.[84]

The following yearDr.Goodell was instructed by the Board to go to Constantinople and commence a distinct mission there among the Armenians. He was followed in due time by the Revs. Dwight, Schauffer, Riggs, Bliss, Hamlin, Van Lennep, Wood and others. Their work largely consisted in opening schools, translating, publishing and printing religious tracts and portions of the Scriptures, and holding religious services. In the absence of much reading material in those days, these tracts, pamphlets and portions of the Bible were eagerly sought and read by the people, and not without good results.

Indeed, a profound love for the reformation of the Armenian Church had taken possession of the minds of many leading men among the nation, who were trying to do all they could. But both their knowledge and their experience were limited; they needed a wise leader or leaders who could direct the movement in a way that would accomplish the desired end. Some of them, when they came in contact withthe missionaries, thought Divine Providence had sent these men to take the lead of this noble movement. They implicitly confided in the wisdom and ability of the missionaries to do this.[85]

The wisdom, magnanimity, and the piety of those missionaries were unquestionable. They showed their wisdom in the fact that they “steadily pursued the policy of disseminating the truth without making attacks upon the Armenian Church.”

The silent influence of this reformation spread far and wide in the city of Constantinople and its suburbs. The Roman Church, through its Jesuit missionaries, had carried on the work of proselyting the Armenians for centuries, and she had thousands of adherents. As a Church she had had her experience with the Reformation in the West. She was alarmed and made the first attempt to stop its progress in the East. The patriarch of the Roman Catholic Armenians publicly denounced the missionaries and their books in 1836. His evil example was followed four years later by the Greek and Armenian patriarchs of Constantinople.

Thus the spirit of hatred and persecution was instilled by their respective representatives into the minds and hearts of different communities. But this movement being mostly among the Armenians, their patriarch took a more active part in issuing anathemas and sending them to the provinces, and he caused them to be read in all the churches.

The Armenian Church was sorely wounded by the Roman Church and its missionaries. The national church meant and still means to the Armenians a national unity, and a separation from the Church was considered a division in the nation. Ever since the Armenians lost their independence, they were known as a religious community in the Turkish empire and their patriarch as the representative of the whole people. The patriarch, as the head of the nation, and other leaders, therefore, thought the suppression of this evangelical work might be a prevention of such a division as had taken place in the case of the followers of the Roman missionaries in 1830. The patriarch and his advisers, who took violent measures of persecution against those who favored and labored for the reformation of the Church, unhappily were not aware of the fact that the intentions of the missionaries of the American Board, were very different from those of the missionaries of the Roman Church. The following is the statement written at the time byRev.Dr.Goodell:

“We ourselves, at this place, have nothing to do with the Church, its dogma, ceremonies, and superstitions.... Nor do we make any attempt to establish a new Church, to raise a new party. We disclaim everything of the kind. We tell them frankly, you have sects enough among you already, and we have no design of setting up a new one, or of pulling down your churches, or drawing members from them in order to build ours over.”[86]

And we find this policy adhered to in the case of the brethren in Nicomedia. The bishop, priests, and the leading men of that city formed a council, and this council drew up a new confession of faith.

“Thus all who were suspected of Protestantism were asked to acknowledge by affixing thereunto their signatures. Those who would refuse to do so were to be anathematized and expelled from the Church. As soon asRev.Dwight andDr.Goodell were informed of the Council’s proceedings they advised the brethren not to separate themselves from the Armenian communion, saying that, if they did so, the work would not advance so rapidly.”[87]

In 1843 a young Armenian embraced Mohammedanism. But he became a prey to the remorse of his conscience for his apostacy. He, therefore, renounced Mohammedanism and reconfessed Christianity. He was seized upon and beheaded in the streets of Constantinople by the Turkish authorities, and his corpse was exposed to the public gaze for several days, as an insult to Christianity. This event aroused the indignation of the European ambassadors, who, through the English ambassador, Sir Stratford Canning, demanded and extorted from the Sultan the following written pledge: “The sublime Porte engages to take effectual measures to prevent henceforward the execution and putting to death of the Christian who is an apostate.”

The imprudent conduct of the patriarch, Bishop Matteos, by his anathemas and excommunicatingthose who were favorably disposed, and were endeavoring to reform the Church, exposed them to all manner of maltreatment. They “were stoned in the streets, unjustly imprisoned, ejected from their shops, invaded and plundered in their houses, bastinadoed and abandoned by their friends.” These persecutions were severe and extended into the provinces wherever there were those who loved the cause of reformation. The unwise course pursued by the patriarch to prevent separation by persecution indeed hastened the division in the church. Vartabed M. Muradian’s statement in regard to Bishop Matteos’ conduct is as follows:

“Patriarch Matteos had already begun religious controversies with the Protestant missionaries, these same controversies were travails of a new eruption. Those inclined to Protestantism were about to appear and the anathematizing course taken by Matteos very materially aided the purpose of the Protestant missionaries, because to persecute is to spread. And, behold, thus on the one hand the inconsiderateness of those inclined to Protestantism, and on the other hand the imprudent conduct of Patriarch Matteos, caused a number of our people to depart from the maternal bosom of the church and adhere to Protestantism, which forms a distinct body, choosing for itself a separate civil head.”[88]

The persecutions and the consequent sufferings of the people were severe, unnecessary, and unjustifiable. Yet whether there were sufficient reasons for a separate organizations it is difficult to say. Themissionaries, however, yielding to the desire of those who wished to form a separate organization, gathered them together, forty in number, and constituted July 1st, 1846, the first Evangelical Armenian Church of Constantinople. On the following SabbathMr.Apisoghom Khachadurian was ordained by the missionaries and installed the pastor of this new church.

On the 20th of July, 1846, another church was organized at Nicomedia and during that summer two more churches were organized, one at Ada-Bazar and the other at Trebizond. These organizations were followed by others in different parts of the country.

The Protestant Armenians, thus organized into separate churches, formed a new community, yet were under the jurisdiction of the patriarch and up to 1847 not quite free from molestation and privation. “In the temporary absence of Sir Stratford Canning, Lord Cawley negotiated the matter with the government, and on the 15th of November, 1847, the grand vizier issued a paper declaring that the ‘Christian subjects of the Ottoman Government professing Protestantism would constitute a separate community, with all the rights and privileges permitted in their temporal or spiritual concern on the part of the patriarch, monks, or priests of other sects.’”. In November, 1850, a decree was issued proclaiming the professors of all religions equal in the eye of the law. The Protestants then were organizedas a distinct civil community, having equal religious rights with the older Christian bodies.

Up to this time the work of reformation spread and progressed with wonderful rapidity, though through persecutions and privations. The readiness of those who knew the truth to spread it; the eagerness of the people to receive the truth; the unconsciously employed means of those who tried to stop this movement, by trying so to do thus spreading it, are well condensed in the following paragraphs:

“When the patriarch had hurried Bedros, the Vartabed, out of the city for his Protestant tendencies, and Vartabed had gone distributing books and preaching throughout the whole region of Aleppo and Aintab. When he had sent priest Vartanes a prisoner to the monastery of Marash, and then banished him to Cæsarea, Vartanes had first awakened the monks, and then preached the gospel all the way to Cæsarea.“The missionaries wisely availed themselves of this rising interest in tours for preaching, conversing, and distributing religious treatises. Messrs. Powers, Johnson, Van Lennex, Smith, Peabody, Schneider, Goodell, Everett, and Benjamin, pushed forth to Tintab, Aleppo, Brousa, Harpoot, Sivas, Diarbekir, Cæsarea, and various other places through the empire.“They soon found that they were in the midst of one of the most extraordinary religious movements of modern times, silent, and sometimes untraceable, but potent and pervasive. In every important town of the empire where there were Armenians, there were found to be as early as 1849, one or more lovers of evangelical truth. But it was no causeless movement. The quiet working of the ‘little leaven’ was traceable almost from its source by indubitable signs. It was a notable sightto see when, in 1838, the Vartabed and the leading men of Orta Keuy, on the Bosphorus, where the missionaries first gained access to the Armenians, went and removed the pictures from the village church. It was another landmark when, in 1842, the fervor of the converts not only filled the city with rumors of the new doctrines, but, after a season of special prayer, held in a neighboring valley, sent forth priest Vartanes on a missionary tour into the heart of Asia Minor. A still more significant fact was when, in that year and the next, the Armenian women were effectually reached and roused, till family worship began in many a household, and a female seminary at Pera became (in 1845) a necessity. The brethren had observed the constant increase of the inquiries, often from a distance, and they had found, even in 1843, such a demand for their books as the press at Smyrna was unable to supply. In many places and at Nicomedia, Adabar and Aintab, books and tracts began the work.“The preaching services at Constantinople would be occasionally attended by individuals from four or five other towns. At Erzroom one Sabbath (February, 1846), there were attendants from six different places. The seminary for young men at Bebek (a suburb of Constantinople) drew visitors from great distances and from all quarters, as far as Alexandria,St.Petersburg, and the Euphrates. The native brethren also had been engaged in disseminating the truth, and the first awakenings at Killis, Kessab, and Eodosta, for example, were due to their labors.“From this time forth the enterprise became too broad even to trace in this rapid way. If the whole movement shall ever be suitably recorded the history of this reformation will be second in interest to no other than has ever been written. There are scores and scores of villages, each of which would furnish material for avolume, and multitudes of cases that recall the fervor, faith, and fortitude of apostolic times.”[89]

“The missionaries wisely availed themselves of this rising interest in tours for preaching, conversing, and distributing religious treatises. Messrs. Powers, Johnson, Van Lennex, Smith, Peabody, Schneider, Goodell, Everett, and Benjamin, pushed forth to Tintab, Aleppo, Brousa, Harpoot, Sivas, Diarbekir, Cæsarea, and various other places through the empire.

“They soon found that they were in the midst of one of the most extraordinary religious movements of modern times, silent, and sometimes untraceable, but potent and pervasive. In every important town of the empire where there were Armenians, there were found to be as early as 1849, one or more lovers of evangelical truth. But it was no causeless movement. The quiet working of the ‘little leaven’ was traceable almost from its source by indubitable signs. It was a notable sightto see when, in 1838, the Vartabed and the leading men of Orta Keuy, on the Bosphorus, where the missionaries first gained access to the Armenians, went and removed the pictures from the village church. It was another landmark when, in 1842, the fervor of the converts not only filled the city with rumors of the new doctrines, but, after a season of special prayer, held in a neighboring valley, sent forth priest Vartanes on a missionary tour into the heart of Asia Minor. A still more significant fact was when, in that year and the next, the Armenian women were effectually reached and roused, till family worship began in many a household, and a female seminary at Pera became (in 1845) a necessity. The brethren had observed the constant increase of the inquiries, often from a distance, and they had found, even in 1843, such a demand for their books as the press at Smyrna was unable to supply. In many places and at Nicomedia, Adabar and Aintab, books and tracts began the work.

“The preaching services at Constantinople would be occasionally attended by individuals from four or five other towns. At Erzroom one Sabbath (February, 1846), there were attendants from six different places. The seminary for young men at Bebek (a suburb of Constantinople) drew visitors from great distances and from all quarters, as far as Alexandria,St.Petersburg, and the Euphrates. The native brethren also had been engaged in disseminating the truth, and the first awakenings at Killis, Kessab, and Eodosta, for example, were due to their labors.

“From this time forth the enterprise became too broad even to trace in this rapid way. If the whole movement shall ever be suitably recorded the history of this reformation will be second in interest to no other than has ever been written. There are scores and scores of villages, each of which would furnish material for avolume, and multitudes of cases that recall the fervor, faith, and fortitude of apostolic times.”[89]

Although a decree issued in November, 1850, proclaimed the Protestants equal in the eye of the law, and accorded to them protection from persecutions, yet the condition of the brethren was very miserable. Many of the younger brethren were disinherited by their parents, and thrown out of employment by their employers, for their espousal of the cause of reformation. The anathemas of the patriarch upon “the heretics” and those who would have any dealings with them, shut out the Protestants from the society of, and the business intercourses with, the people. Many, therefore, had to sell and sacrifice their properties for the necessities of life, and fell into abject poverty and had almost reached the verge of starvation.

Russia’s desire and demand to establish a protectorate over the Greek Christians in the Turkish empire, and the latter government’s refusal, led these two powers into, what is generally known in history, as the Crimean war. England and France were the allies of the Turk in that war, 1853. This Crimean war also greatly added to the misery of the Protestant community and threatened the existence of the little flock. But the ingenuity of theRev.Dr.Cyrus Hamlin, the noble missionary, did ameliorate the condition of the Protestants. He established industries, especially the mill and bakery, where he found sufficientwork for them to do; he also was able to build a few churches, in which these brethren might worship. These churches were greatly needed, and he had some balance left in hand after building them.[90]

Some good people thought that “the Crimean war was overruled for the furtherance of the Gospel by becoming the occasion, if not the actual means, for securing another concession from the Turkish government on the subject of religious liberty, a new Magna Charter for the Christian subjects of the Porte.” Some regarded this edict (the Hatti Humayaun) as a complete grant of freedom to all Christians or Mohammedans, to follow the dictates of their consciences without any molestation whatever. A few high-sounding sentences from it will show what great contentment it would have given to the subjects of the Porte if it had been meant to be fulfilled:

“Every distinction or designation tending to make any class whatever of the subjects of my empire inferior to another class on account of their religion, language, or race, shall be forever effaced from the administrative protocol.“As all forms of religion are and shall be freely professed in my dominions, no subject of my empire shall be hindered in the exercise of the religion that he professes, nor shall be in any way annoyed on this account. NO ONE SHALL BE COMPELLED TO CHANGE HIS RELIGION.”

“As all forms of religion are and shall be freely professed in my dominions, no subject of my empire shall be hindered in the exercise of the religion that he professes, nor shall be in any way annoyed on this account. NO ONE SHALL BE COMPELLED TO CHANGE HIS RELIGION.”

It is, however, nothing uncommon with the sultans and other officials of the Turkish government to promise a good deal, with the full determination not to fulfill the least.

“By the terms of the treaty of 1856 (signed at Paris), Turkey was bound in the face of the world to redress the inveterate evils and abuses of her government, and to extend to all her subjects the blessings of civil and religious freedom. There was accordingly promulgated the Hatt-y-Humayoun of 1856, in which the principles of reform embodied in the Tanzimat were renewed and extended, but the edict, like those which preceded it, remained in effect null and void. The grievances and wrongs endured since that time, especially by the Christian population, the perversion of justice, the gross administrative corruption, furnish a sufficient commentary of the futility of the attempted or promised reform of the Porte.”[91]

Had public opinion in Great Britain not been outraged by the Bulgarian massacre, the Conservative government of Lord Beaconsfield would have given armed support to the Turks even in 1877, in spite of “the perversion of justice, the gross administrative corruption” of the Turkish government, and “the grievances and wrongs endured since that time, especially by the Christian population” of the Porte.[92]

The number of the reformed churches in ten years increased to thirty, organized at different places in the empire. And it was only twenty-one years after the organization of the first Reformed ArmenianChurch, that the lateRev.Dr.H. J. Van Lennep reported, before the Evangelical Alliance at Amsterdam, Holland:

“There were now (1867) fifty-six churches, with two thousand adherents.” And he adds, “The use of such means [for reformation] soon produced a marked effect not so much upon the volatile Greek as upon the sober-minded Armenian, and evangelical doctrines were soon spreading among the latter with amazing power and rapidity. Providence raised from among the people men of eloquence, power, and influence, whose labors were wonderfully blessed; and great numbers soon rejoiced in the precious doctrine ‘Christ crucified.’ The young converts, full of faith and the Holy Ghost, went about lighting the torch of truth and salvation throughout the land.”

It is impossible, and incompatible with our present purpose, to give a fuller account of the grand work of reformation, which is bound to triumph and reconquer the countries once under the sway of the power of the gospel of our Lord.

Twenty-five years ago, there were one hundred and ten churches and eleven thousand and ninety-five members, seventy-four ordained ministers and one hundred and twenty-nine preachers, and eighty-five other helpers, and two hundred and three places for stated preaching, with thirty-one thousand six hundred and eighteen average attendants to services, twenty thousand six hundred Sabbath school scholars and a community of forty-five thousand Protestants, who had contributed $48,941 for all purposes during the year (1890-1891).

Within the last twenty-five years the missionary work has been steadily growing in spite of hindrances, persecutions, massacres and forced conversions to Mohammedanism by the Turks. The following brief table of statistics for 1914 may give an idea how the work was progressing before the terrible war of 1915:

FOOTNOTES:[83]Bartlett, “Historical Sketch of the Missions of The American Board in Turkey,” p. 3.[84]The Armeno-Turkish is not a distinct language; it is the Turkish written in Armenian characters.[85]“The Orientals have an admirable kind of coolness and courage. Give them a leader in whom they have confidence, and they will follow him to the death.”—“Cyrus Hamlin.”[86]Prime, “Forty Years in the Turkish Empire,” pp. 173-4.[87]Nergararian, “The History of the Beginnings of Missionary Work in Nicomedia,” pp. 20-21.[88]Muradian, “The History of the Holy Apostolic Church of Armenia,” pages 607-8. (This work is in the original Armenian.)[89]Bartlett, “The Historical Sketch of Missions of A.B.C.F.M. in Turkey,” pp. 10-12 and 14.[90]Hamlin, “Among the Turks,” page 258. “It had been no object of mine to have any balance in hand. It amounted, with what had already been expended for churches mentioned, to $25,000.”[91]Milner, “The Turkish Empire,” pp. 223-4.[92]Bryce, “Transcaucasia and Ararat,” pp. 519-20, the 4th edition.

[83]Bartlett, “Historical Sketch of the Missions of The American Board in Turkey,” p. 3.

[84]The Armeno-Turkish is not a distinct language; it is the Turkish written in Armenian characters.

[85]“The Orientals have an admirable kind of coolness and courage. Give them a leader in whom they have confidence, and they will follow him to the death.”—“Cyrus Hamlin.”

[86]Prime, “Forty Years in the Turkish Empire,” pp. 173-4.

[87]Nergararian, “The History of the Beginnings of Missionary Work in Nicomedia,” pp. 20-21.

[88]Muradian, “The History of the Holy Apostolic Church of Armenia,” pages 607-8. (This work is in the original Armenian.)

[89]Bartlett, “The Historical Sketch of Missions of A.B.C.F.M. in Turkey,” pp. 10-12 and 14.

[90]Hamlin, “Among the Turks,” page 258. “It had been no object of mine to have any balance in hand. It amounted, with what had already been expended for churches mentioned, to $25,000.”

[91]Milner, “The Turkish Empire,” pp. 223-4.

[92]Bryce, “Transcaucasia and Ararat,” pp. 519-20, the 4th edition.

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