History
In the 19th century there was intellectual and spiritual awakening in Constantinople. This awakening and enlightenment pushed the reformists to study the Bible. Under the patronage of the Armenian Patriarchate, a school was opened, headed by Krikor Peshdimaljian, one of the leading intellectuals of the time. The principal aim of this school was to train qualified clergy for the Armenian Apostolic Church.
The result of this awakening was the formation of a society called “Pietistical Union.” The members held meetings for the study of the Bible. During these meetings and Bible studies, questions were raised regarding the practices and traditions of the church, which to them seemed to conflict with biblical truths.
These reformists faced strong retaliation from the Armenian Patriarchate of Constantinople. Eventually, after Patriarch Matteos Chouhajian excommunicated the reformists, they were forced to organize themselves into a separate religious community, the Protestant Millet. This separation led to the formation of the Armenian Evangelical Church in 1846.
Today, there are close to a 100 Armenian Evangelical Churches in the following countries: Argentina, Armenia, Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, Cyprus, Egypt, England, France, Georgia, Greece, Iran, Iraq, Lebanon, Syria, Turkey, Uruguay, and the United States of America.
Read more about this topic: Armenian Evangelical Church
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“A people without history
Is not redeemed from time, for history is a pattern
Of timeless moments.”
—T.S. (Thomas Stearns)
“In history an additional result is commonly produced by human actions beyond that which they aim at and obtain—that which they immediately recognize and desire. They gratify their own interest; but something further is thereby accomplished, latent in the actions in question, though not present to their consciousness, and not included in their design.”
—Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831)
“What is most interesting and valuable in it, however, is not the materials for the history of Pontiac, or Braddock, or the Northwest, which it furnishes; not the annals of the country, but the natural facts, or perennials, which are ever without date. When out of history the truth shall be extracted, it will have shed its dates like withered leaves.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)