31/03/2015 15:32
Armenian martyrs move from victims to victors
By Leon Lagerstam. QC News.
At first, it seemed a little creepy to be ordained as a priest on the anniversary of an Armenian genocide.
Yet, the Rev. Aren Sarkis Jebejian said he was told by an archbishop that his April 24-25, 2004, ordination helps symbolize how Armenians have moved from being victims to victors of the genocide that began April 24, 1915.
Rev. Jebejian is the deacon-in-charge at St. Gregory the Illuminator parish in Chicago. He was a featured speaker during local events earlier this week to mark the 100th anniversary of the beginning of the Armenian genocide that killed more than 1.5 million Armenians between 1915 and 1923.
Events included a documentary film last Sunday at the Figge Art Museum, an interfaith prayer service Tuesday at the Christ the King Chapel at St. Ambrose University, and a "Families of The Armenian Genocide" program at Augustana College.
The observance was co-sponsored by an Armenian Genocide Remembrance Committee of the Quad-Cities, an offshoot of a Quad-Cities Holocaust Education Committee; the Jewish Federation of the Quad-Cities; and the campus ministries of the two local colleges.
"We didn't want to bring just another Holocaust message," federation spokesman Glenn Kass said during an editorial board meeting Tuesday.
"We want this to be seen as a victory for our martyrs and the beginning of the healing process," Rev. Jebejian said. "No more lamenting. The church has taken the bold step this year to canonize the martyrs to move them from being victims to victors. We have not canonized a saint in 500 years."
Still, it's important to raise awareness of genocide, because "history is repeating itself," in places such as Syria, and Iraq, and in the actions taken by ISIS, Rev. Jebejian said. "Genocide must stop."
The Armenian tragedy is referred to as the first genocide of the 20th century, according to a pamphlet from Rev. Jebejian.
"The Armenian Genocide set the tone for other brutalities of the 20th century: in the Nazi death camps, in Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge, in Bosnia-Herzegovina, in Rwanda and in Darfur," the pamphlet said. "And it echoes ominously in our own time, in desperate places where 'ethnic cleansing' has become a policy of state, instead of a crime before man and God."
Research isn't for the faint of heart, Mr. Kass said. Armenians were subjected to deportation, abduction, torture, massacre and starvation, and the pictures weren't pretty, he said.
"And yet -- incredibly -- 100 years later, the Turkish government is still denying that the Armenian Genocide ever took place," according to the pamphlet.
"But we cannot blame the Turkish government of today for what a different government did that many years ago," Rev. Jebejian said. "That's like blaming Germans of today for what the Nazis did."
Another commemoration will be held in May in Washington, D.C., he said. "It will be a huge ecumenical program," planned by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops and National Council of Churches.