Armenian Church's dwindling members cause concern

Thursday, September 15, 2005 13:10:13 IST
Cybernoon
A STAFF REPORTER

Malankara community steps in to revive Fort's St Peter's Church

Situated in the bylanes of Fort, within a stone's thrown of the Bombay Stock Exchange, stands St Peter's Church, the temple of prayer for the Malankara community. Unfortunately, however, the religious community is threatened by extinction in Mumbai as it's presently left with only three members who use this church. To maintain the divinity, its present members are on the lookout for the right people to undertake the spiritual responsibility to take over as its future torchbearers. Sunny Perirayam, a Malankara orthodox Christian and former president of the Young Men's Christian Association (YMCA) is one of the few who took it upon himself to rejuvenate the Armenian Church.

[...]. Says Sunny Perirayam, "This church is a very old church built in 1892. The structure was loose and in need of immediate attention. It was Zabel Joshi's daughter, an architect, who renovated the church. It's a small church, but indeed an immaculate one. There are people who believe that this church is leased out to us. Please note that, this church is just given to us to conduct holy services rather let it face extinction. They are Armenian orthodox, while we are the Malankara Orthodox people. So it's by an understanding that we are servicing the church."

Incidentally, relations between India and Armenia date back to over 2,500 years, with evidence of an Indian community in Armenia during the fifth century BC. Armenian theologist Yeghishe (fifth century) refers to the "Hindu language" as musical. Although some experts claim the existence of this community on the Malabar Coast in the seventh century, the first recorded visit is that of Armenian trader Thomas Cana who reached the Malabar Coast in 780 AD. Cut to the present. Nuvart Mehta, one of the three members of this community, attributes the cause of extinction of the community to migration of its young members. [...].
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Note: Above are excerpts from the article. The full article appears here. Clarifications and comments by me are contained in {}. Deletions are marked by [...]. The bold emphasis is mine.