Diocese Builds Relations with United Nations

As the key institution in the Armenian-American community, the New York based Eastern Diocese continues to build bridges with the United Nations community.

Educating the Global Community

In September 2002, the Diocese's non-governmental organization (NGO) representative to the U.N., Adrienne Alexanian, and Aram Arkun, assistant director of the Diocese's Zohrab Information Center, organized a workshop on the Nagorno-Karabagh conflict during an international meeting at the U.N. headquarters.

"This was a chance for Armenians to increase awareness of the situation in Nagorno-Karabagh," Ms. Alexanian said. 

The workshop, "Working Towards Reconciliation in the Caucasus", was part of a three-day NGO conference on rebuilding societies marred by conflict.  Drawing a standing-room only crowd, the workshop featured three renowned speakers, including Baroness Caroline Cox, deputy speaker of the British House of Lords who has been an advocate for Armenia and Nagorno-Karabagh. 

Welcoming the World to Our Spiritual Home

Later in September, St. Vartan Armenian Cathedral hosted the second annual Joint Orthodox Christian Prayer Service for the United Nations community, designed as a way to establish an Orthodox presence for the cause of world peace and understanding, and to enable Orthodox Christians at the U.N. to share their common religious and cultural heritage.

"The quest for unity must remain a shared vocation among both our churches and the United Nations community," Archbishop Barsamian said during the sermon he delivered to about 300 people.  "And it is especially fitting that such a quest should begin here, in a country that more than any other exalts the possibility of brotherhood, and its divine rewards."

Many U.N. ambassadors attended the prayer service at St. Vartan Cathedral, including Dr. Movses Abelian, Armenia's ambassador to the United Nations, and ambassadors from Moldova, the Czech Republic, the Ukraine, Russia, Finland, Yugoslavia, Bulgaria, Syria, and Cyprus.