Animal sacrifices still go on in Soviet Armenia

Press, 24 July 1986, Page 38

Animal sacrifices still go on in Soviet Armenia

By

TONY BARBER

of Reuters,

through NZPA Gegard, Soviet Union At a monastery high in the hills of Soviet Armenia, a group of believers takes a sheep with a red ribbon round its neck to be blessed by a priest of the Armenian Christian Church.

Then they lead it to a butcher, who briskly cuts its throat with a knife. As the sheep lies dying, the butcher dips his finger in its blood and makes the sign of the Crucifix on the foreheads of several small children.

The dead sheep is then strung up by its trotters, skinned and cut up. Armenian women in traditional costume cook the meat on a spit, and distribute it to friends and family. In spite of discouragement from Armenian Church leaders and criticisms from Soviet authorities, ritual animal sacrifices persist at the cave monastery of Gegard, about 30km east of the Armenian capital of Yerevan.

The sacrifices date back to Old Testament times, and mark events such as a child’s birth. They testify to the resilience of a faith which started long before Armenia declared itself the world’s first Christian country in 301 A.D. Centuries of oppression

by pagan and Muslim conquerors forged powerful links between Armenians and their Church, and developed the sense that it was a symbol of national identity. When Armenia split in the fifth century from the Eastern and Western Roman churches in a dispute over how Jesus Christ combined the roles of man and deity, the Armenian sense of distinctiveness was further enhanced. The Cathedral in Echmiadzin, 20km from Yerevan, is the official seat of the Armenian Apostolic Church for believers in the Soviet republic and for the Armenian diaspora in the Middle East, the United States and elsewhere. Armenian Church leaders have said 70 per cent of all babies are baptised, 70 per cent of funerals are conducted by preachers, and the number of church weddings is also rising. The figures suggest a faith that is flourishing more successfully than most others in the Soviet Union’s 15 republics. Most Armenian religious institutions ,in the Soviet Union were closed down by 1941, but since the end of World War II the Communist authorities in Yerevan and Moscow have eased their attitude and accepted a role for the Church.

Party activists nonetheless continue to campaign against the Church’s influence. At the Armenian party congress last January, the party leader, Karen Demirchyan, spoke of complacency in “atheistic education,” and urged “the active use of traditions of anti-clerical-ism.”

The official Armenian press criticises trade in religious objects, the popularity of church weddings, and the symbolic adorning of trees at places like Gegard with handkerchiefs. Activists in the Armenian Komsomol (Young Communist League) have been chided for allowing young people to observe religious rituals, and have been told such practices are not to be considered an integral part of the national heritage. The Church, however, is allowed extensive contacts with its faithful in other countries, who support it with donations in foreign exchange, and arrive every year on pilgrimages. In return, Church leaders avoid sensitive political issues. The special place of the Church in Armenian life is reflected in the republic’s official emblem, Mount Ararat of biblical fame, whose snow-capped peak across the border in Turkey is visible from Yerevan and Echmiadzin.