Resolutions

Saturday was the day for proposals and new business at the Diocesan Assembly, after a morning worship service.

There was one pre-submitted proposal, which was submitted by the Sts. Joachim and Anne Church of Palos Heights, IL. It is a resolution dealing with parish assessments, the "tax" paid by each parish to fund Diocesan ministries.

Currently the assessments are a percentage of only certain types of parish income -- plate collections and dues for example – while not taking into account things such as picnics and raffles, donations, and endowments. The parish proposing the resolution says the current formula penalizes parishes that hold stewardship drives as opposed to parishes who rely on events.

"Certainly this is not an easy situation to correct. This is backwards in its current format," said Paul Mardoian of Palos Heights. "You cannot penalize churches for doing the right thing. This needs to be reviewed to make this a better formula, though maybe not perfect."

The Diocesan Council and other delegates stood in support of the proposal, though the proposals committee – charged with screening proposals – said its members did not support the proposal because any system would benefit some parishes and hurt others.

"Our assessment is almost twice per member of any other parish in the Diocese. Something has to be done, otherwise you'll encourage people to play games," said Sarkis Kechejian, delegate from the St. Sarkis Church of Dallas, TX, who said his parish saw its assessment rise after a successful fund-raising effort.

The delegates passed the proposal.

NEW BUSINESS

Tom Garabedian, a delegate from the Holy Translators Church in Framingham, MA, introduced a motion to require the Diocesan Council to conduct a professional study of opinions and views of church members and those Armenians not involved. The study should would look at sociological and linguistic issues that are barriers that interfere with or impede broader participation in the worship and other aspects of parish life and anything that interfere with the spiritual mission of the church.

The proposal set a budget of $40,000 for the study.

"The mission of the Diocese is to make the Armenian Church significant in the lives of every Armenian. Fulfilling that goal requires an understanding of the spiritual needs of the Armenians in the Diocese," Garabedian said.

Some delegates expressed concern that the study was aimed primarily at the issue of the use of English in the Divine Liturgy, an idea discussed at last year's Assembly and one which His Holiness Catholicos Karekin II, Supreme Patriarch and Catholicos of All Armenians, has made official announcements about.

"If it involves the Divine Liturgy and vernacular within the aspects of study, then I'm concerned about it. We've heard very clearly from the Primate that the Catholicos has announced that vernacular is out of our power at this time," said Fr. Nersess Jebejian of the St. Hagop Church of Pinellas Park, FL. "If there are other issues that concern our Diocese and parishes, then I think it will be a good thing to start and get some results."

Some delegates said its purpose was not to address the language of the Divine Liturgy but to see how the Diocese could strengthen its outreach to those who do not attend church. They also said the study is not an action item, but rather getting data about all aspects of church life that can then be used for future planning.

"We want to understand why are the people not going to church, what are the road blocks," said Paul Mardoian of Palos Heights. "Maybe it is the language and we can't do anything about it. But we need to know the roadblocks, so we need to have a study. The other things we can make a difference and we'll take action on that."

The motion was passed.

However the proposal's language, particularly its reference to the word "linguistic", continued to raise concerns given the divisive nature of past discussions on the idea of using English in the Divine Liturgy.

"I am speaking as chief pastor of this Diocese, so I will be very open and very frank. A proposal passed according to the rules and regulations of our Diocese, that's wonderful but I want to make sure we don't go through what we did last year," the Primate said. "There is no question in my mind that people of genuine good will, whatever their position on this matter of the language of the Divine Liturgy, are all motivated by the desire to strengthen our church. However, they disagree how to achieve that goal. But in the past it has gotten out of hand. It was not a good Christian attitude."

The Primate said past arguments on the issue was unnecessarily divisive, especially given the fact that the Catholicos has directed that the badarak will be celebrated in Armenian. While he supported the idea of finding out the needs of Armenians in the Diocese, he worried the new survey would continue the un-Christian attitudes.

"Let us find a good way the best way to move our church forward rather than creating another struggle among ourselves, which will affect each one of us. It would not be beneficial to anyone of us," the Primate said.

Fr. Yeprem Kelegian, a member of the Diocesan Council, asked delegates to rescind the recently approved proposal and instead offered a new proposal that simply requested a "sociological study to determine the state of the Armenian Church Eastern Diocese and to find steps to be taken to bring more people, especially the youth, into the life of the church."

The second survey was approved to replace the first proposal.

Posted by Jake at April 30, 2005 05:46 PM