... churches are guaranteed by international agreements.
"Throughout Ottoman rule, the rights of the Armenian Patriarchate, along with the Latin and Greek Patriarchates, were confirmed in the Paris Peace ...
Armenian International Magazine (AIM) July 2000, Volume 11, No. 7, pp. 44-45.
COUNCIL OF EUROPE Parliamentary Assembly of Council of Europe Votes In favor of Armenia’s membership
By Hratch Tchilingirian
On June 28 the Coucil of Europe Parliamentary Assembly (PACE) voted unanimously to approve Armenia’s bid to join the 41-member organization. Armenia is set to become a full member of Council of Europe (CE) when its Committee of Ministers meet in September. Azerbaijan’s bid was also overwhelmingly accepted, with just one vote against.
Armenian International Magazine (AIM) Vol. 11, No. 6, June 2000, pp. 50-51
A Noble Cause Violinist Levon Chilingirian Crusades for Armenia’s Musicians
By Hratch Tchilingirian
With all the pomp and regalia of royal ritual, Queen Elizabeth II, by the Grace of God, of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, Canada, and Her other Realms and Territories, Head of the Commonwealth, has bestowed upon Violinist Levon Chilingirian, 52, the title of Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) for his "contribution to music" during a ceremony at Buckingham Palace in February. OBE, established by King George V in 1917, is awarded to British subjects for their "outstanding work."
... interested in a stable situation in Armenia so as to continue the negotiations and resolve the conflict peacefully,” said Aliyev at Baku airport on his way to Georgia for a two-day visit, immediately preceding ...
Armenian International Magazine (AIM) February 2000, Volume 11, No. 2, pp. 54-56
Medieval Lobbyists
AUB Professor Explores Armenian-Moslem Relations in the Middle East
By HRATCH TCHILINGIRIAN
The political and cultural history of the Armenians in the Near East is one of the least explored areas within traditional Armenian Studies. But Seta Dadoyan, Professor of Cultural Studies, Philosophy and Art at the American University of Beirut (AUB), has created a new interest in the subject — with a particular focus on its contemporary significance.
Armenian International Magazine (AIM) February 2000, Volume 11, No. 2
FOCUS OF THE MONTH
Jubilee in the Holy Land Pilgrimage of the Century Includes Top Government, Religious Leaders
By HRATCH TCHILINGIRIAN
early 1000 Armenians from around the world gathered in the Holy Land during the week of January 17-24 to celebrate the bi-millennial jubilee of Christ’s Nativity in Bethlehem. The celebrations were headed by the top leadership of the Armenian Apostolic Church with the participation of Armenian President Robert Kocharian, who led a 30-member state delegation to Palestine and Israel for the occasion.
... Nobel Peace Prize. Gasparian and a team of psychologists treated more than 300 children and 150 adults right after the bombings in Stepanakert.
Subsequent proposals for psychological intervention and ...
Armenian International Magazine AIM Vol. 11, No. 1, January 2000, pp. 52-53
The Armenian Evangelical Union of the Near East
Coping with the effects of the war
Hratch Tchilingirian
Established in 1924, the Lebanon-based Armenian Evangelical Union of the Near East is one of the oldest among the five Unions that comprise the Armenian Evangelical Church. It is a union of over two dozen churches and congregations in seven countries in the Middle East and one church in Australia, as the origin of the Sydney church is traced back to Lebanon and Syria.
Armenian International Magazine AIM Vol. 11, No. 1, January 2000, pp. 52-53
The Armenian Evangelical School in Anjar
Providing a brighter future
Hratch Tchilingirian
Ara (not his real name) was four years old when a social worker brought him to the Armenian Evangelical boarding school in Anjar, the Armenian village in Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley. The school was already in session and the principal insisted that Ara should come at the beginning of the following year. But the social worker could not take Ara back. “You wouldn’t send him away if I told you where this child comes from,” pleaded the desperate social worker. Ara was very quiet and looked disturbed, says Rev. Nersess Balabanian, 40, who is in charge of the school. “The child’s father is a drug addict, his mother is a prostitute and he lives in a tiny room with two other little siblings,” explains Balabanian, “we couldn’t possibly return this child to that place.” They took him in.
... is cautiously optimistic about Lebanon’s future as it is related to the future of the entire region. “A peace settlement with Israel will make things better,” he says. Since Lebanon is not a major exporting ...
Armenian International Magazine (AIM) December 1999 Volume 10, No. 12, pp. 42-45
The Historical Present Two Scholars See the Present in the Annals of Ancient Times
By Hratch Tchilingirian
Putting together the dismembered body parts of gods — discarded in museum warehouses around the world — is not an easy job. But for archeologist and Egyptologist Hourig Sourouzian, 51, it is a professional passion. Painstakingly searching, identifying and matching pieces of heads, torsoes and legs of ancient statues has made Sourouzian one of the most sought-after experts of Egyptian art.
... format for finding a solution, stand ready to further advance the peaceprocess and its future implementation, including by providing all necessary assistance to the parties.’’
This was a far cry from ...
Armenian International Magazine (AIM), November 1999, Vol. 10, No. 11, pp. 24-25
A New Beginning Catholicos Garegin II Faces the Task of Healing and Leading the Church
By HRATCH TCHILINGIRIAN
The Armenian Apostolic Church elected the 132nd Catholicos of All Armenians on October 27. Archbishop Garegin Nersissian, Vicar of the Ararat Diocese, succeeded Catholicos Karekin I, who passed away in June after serving for only four years as the head of the 1700-year old Church.
... this election will end right after the new head of the Armenian Church is elected and we shall see the restoration of peace in the environment. We organized this election with this kind of optimism. ...
... to the security of the state itself. If members of the sects refuse to bear arms, they are endangering the security of the state and our peace.
How do you evaluate the role of the Armenian Church in ...
Armenian International Magazine Volume 10, Number 10, October 1999, p. 10
[Editorial by Hratch Tchilingirian]
Two Different Islands Cooperation among state officials, policy makers and businesses benefits all
In the last few years, Great Britain, a huge and important island in Europe, has gone through a process of reassessing its foreign policy in the South Caucasus, Central Asia and Armenia in particular.
Armenian International Magazine (AIM) July 1999, Volume 10, Number 7, pp 29-33
The End of a Journey Karekin I, Catholicos of All Armenians, 1995-1999; Catholicos of Cilicia, 1977-1995
By Hratch Tchilingirian
In April 1995, Karekin I was elected the 131st Catholicos of All Armenians in Ejmiatsin by the National Ecclesiastical Assembly, arguably, the most pan-Armenian body representing almost nine million Armenians in the republic and 32 countries in the Diaspora. Unlike other elections in the last five hundred years, this one was the first in a free and independent Republic of Armenia. And for the first time in history, the Catholicos of the Great House of Cilicia, in Lebanon, was elected Catholicos of All Armenians in Ejmiatsin.
Armenian International Magazine (AIM) April 1999, Vol. 10, No. 4, p 58-59
AN ARAB HISTORIAN AND HIS CAUSE Saleh Zahredeen Takes on the Armenian Genocide
By Hratch Tchilingirian
"The truth shall be told even while hanging on the gallows," confidently affirms Saleh Zahreedin, 48, Lebanese Druze historian and author of a dozen books and pamphlets in Arabic on the Armenians and the Genocide.
... first step for a peaceful solution: recognizing Karabakh as a side to the conflict. This has, for obvious reasons, become an obstacle to negotiations.
Technicalities over the issue of recognition could ...