A Neopagan Movement in Armenia: The Children of Ara

This essay was written with a particular audience in mind. The audience in question may have heard of or even seen Armenia firsthand, known some of its people, food, or holidays, but its encounter with Armenian culture in all its depth and richness has remained in a fog of mystery. My purpose in writing this essay was thus to convey to such an audience some of the meanings which I experienced and conceptualized firsthand as belonging to the core of the Armenian world so as to lift this fog and afford intelligibility and insight. Armenia as I experienced it was replete with paradoxical meanings. These various meanings not only revealed truths about the land and its people but raised a host of questions that cannoteven ought not-be easily answered. Indeed, this essay is an attempt to chart out some of these meanings in as much detail as is necessary for an understanding of Armenia that is descriptively rich and which seeks to leverage rather than obfuscate the very sense of curiosity that prompts these questions into their existence. By the end, the reader should be able to imagine and think about Armenia along the following two dimensions: (b) the faith and (c) the law. The question concerning Armenia's faith seeks to address core aspects of the history and nature of Armenian Christianity, its relationship to pre-Christian Armenian paganism, as well as its mythological substructure. The question concerning the law, then, seeks to address core aspects of Armenians' attitudes toward rule-following, social complexity, and institutions, outlining some possible causes of their deficiency.

Digest of Middle East Studies, 1998

Abstract: This article is about realities embedded in the notions of “religiosity” and “Armenian religious identity” in contemporary Armenia. It is focused on some patterns of the Armenian national religion and offi cial forms of Armenian Apostolic Christianity. In particular, the article discusses links, attitudes, interrelations, contradictions and mutual infl uences of doctrinal Armenian Apostolic Christianity and its vernacular versions. The Armenian version of vernacular Christianity includes the religious practices of worshipping local saints, magic, healing and divination. An attempt to outline three conventional models of religiosity within the Armenian Apostolic Christian identity, those of “grassroots”, “privatized”, and “fundamental”, has been made in the paper, and the main patterns of attitudes among these models are discussed. In fact, these models of religiosity represent different religious subcultures, with different systems of signs and different patterns of religious mentality, though sharing the symbols, values, and priorities of Armenian Apostolic Christian identity at the national level.

Religion and the Secular State: National Reports, Published by The International Center for Law and Religion Studies Brigham Young University Provo, Utah, Washington, D.C. , 2010

The Armenian people are among the most ancient Christians in the world. Therefore, the history of Armenia has seen numerous wars waged for the sake of Christianity. The Armenian people have been proud of the conflicts that preserved the Christian identity of Armenians. Armenians view Vardan Mamikonyan, the leader of these combats, as a national hero and a symbol of their Christian identity. Armenia's Christian identity has continued to this day. This paper will examine this identity and how it has led to a special relationship between religion and the State during recent Armenian history. For Armenians, Christianity was not only a religious option, but a cultural option as well. Being a part of the Christian world makes up one of the main cornerstones of Armenian historiography. Even fundamental religious institutions such as the Armenian Apostolic Church have attached particular significance to the cultural essence of Christianity. The Armenian Church sanctified not the miracle-workers, but the martyrs. The main virtue and merit of a Christian was his readiness to sacrifice himself for Christianity. The church always encouraged this phenomenon. This perception dominates other intellectual and cultural choices made by the Armenian people. II. HISTORICAL & CULTURAL CONTEXT Many academics view Christianity as a main component of Armenia's identity. The Armenian Constitution reflects the importance of the church in Armenia. Article 8.1 reads: "The church shall be separate from the State in the Republic of Armenia. The Republic of Armenia recognizes the exclusive historical mission of the Armenian Apostolic Holy Church as a national church, in the spiritual life, development of the national culture and preservation of the national identity of the people of Armenia." Undoubtedly, the Armenian Apostolic Church has played an essential role in the historical and cultural orientation of Armenian people and impacted the nation's cultural and political conduct. In the 5 th and 6 th centuries, Armenians created their alphabet in order to provide an Armenian translation of the Bible. This history has provided Armenia with enormous sources for rendering Armenian history, as well as having a full picture of other countries' historical scene. With over 1700 years of Christian history, Christianity has become a part of Armenia's ethnic identity rather than religious identification. The formal atheistic heritage of Soviet society has shifted the religious culture of Armenia. At present, many Armenians identify their ethnicity by their religious affiliation. Armenian society recognizes that different ethnicities have different religions. However, many Armenians disapprove of deviations from the general norm. This mentality is typical of Armenian authorities, although the legal sphere has tended to secure religious freedoms. Although its constitution makes Armenia a secular country and separates church and State, the Armenian Apostolic Church is still perceived as a State church. However, no church or religious establishment, including the Armenian Apostolic Church, receives financial allocations from the state budget. Additionally, no religious activity is officially financed or receives tax exemptions. Most Armenians approve of this concept. Defining "State religion" remains difficult despite this expression being widely used. The similarity between the Armenian words "state" and "national" likely make it difficult to define "State religion." Because the Armenian word for national can also mean "ethnic," many Armenians perceive the Armenian Apostolic Church as ethnic church, and

In this article, the author tries to trace the trajectories of Soviet and post-Soviet transformations of vernacular religiosity in Armenia, in particular, the cult of shrines. She argues that the cult of shrines and related manifestations of vernacular religion were consistently reconceptualized, first, in the period of Soviet secularization and modernization, and, secondly, in the period of post-Soviet and post-secular transformations of the Armenian society. The Soviet modernity led to 'neo-archaization' of vernacular religious practice by instrumentalizing some pre-institutional forms and manifestations of religiosity. The post-secular reconceptualization of vernacular religion draws upon new realities, such as mobile/virtual religiosity, new religious materiality, commodification and consumerism, and a new, modernized interplay between institutional and non-institutional dimensions of religion(s).