Area Armenians pause to remember victims

Wednesday, April 25, 2007
The Republican
By Alex Peshkov, staff writer

Marineh Kirakosian and her husband, the Rev. Bedros Shetilian, both have ancestors who were directly affected by the tragedy of their people, which often has been called the first genocide of the 20th century - the Armenian genocide of 1915.

An estimated 1.5 million Armenians were massacred and expelled from the crumbling Ottoman Empire during World War I. Turkey has never acknowledged the events as genocide, saying instead that the deaths were caused by a civil war and ethnic strife.

Yesterday, the day which marked the start of the full-scale massacres in 1915, was commemorated by Armenians worldwide as Genocide Memorial Day.

"My ancestors fled from Turkey to Syria. Marineh's ancestors went to Armenia," said Shetilian, 43, who was born in Aleppo, Syria, and speaks English, Arabic, Armenian, Russian and Turkish.

He lives in Ludlow and serves as the pastor of two Armenian Apostolic churches: St. Gregory in Indian Orchard and Holy Cross in Troy, N.Y. The parishes have some 180 members between them, mostly descendants of those who came to America after the events of 1915.

St. Gregory the Illuminator is recognized by Armenian Apostolic Church as its apostle, whose efforts made Armenia the first country to adopt Christianity as its official religion in the beginning of the 4th century.

"Many of our parishioners are second- or third-generation Americans, although we have a few people who recently came from Armenia," said Shetilian, who speaks old Armenian during services and delivers his sermon in English.

A symphony orchestra conductor by training, Shetilian had worked with the St. Petersburg Philharmonic, the oldest symphonic ensemble in the former Soviet Union, and the Bardi Symphony Orchestra of Leicester, United Kingdom, before becoming a priest.

"At first, I think, he wasn't planning on this to happen until sometime later in his life," his wife said.

They met in 1983 in a music school in Yerevan, the capital of Soviet Armenia, where Shetilian came from Syria to study music.

"Then we got married and moved to Russia," she said.

While studying at the St. Petersburg Conservatory, Shetilian discovered for himself the Russian philosophers of the Silver Age.

"I can say that the writings of Nikolay Berdyaev, Vladimir Solovyov, Sergey Bulgakov, as well as those by (Russian Orthodox theologian, Biblical scholar and writer) Father Aleksandr Men, were the greatest influence on my decision" to become a priest, Shetilian said. "And the books of Dostoyevsky, of course."

There was not an Armenian seminary in St. Petersburg, he said, so he enrolled in St. Thomas Aquinas Seminary, a Catholic school.

"I would go to the classes in the evenings after my day job as a conductor," he said. "I studied there for two years and then went to an Armenian Apostolic Church seminary in Lebanon for another two years."

He was ordained in 2001. Two years later he was sent to serve in America.

"We lived in Boston and New York City first and then moved to Ludlow," said Kirakosian, 36, who attends English language classes at the Ludlow Area Adult Learning Center.

They still go to New York once a week.

"Our daughter, Arpi, is studying violin at the conservatory there, so we drive to see her every Saturday," Kirakosian said.

Alex Peshkov, a staff writer for The Republican, immigrated to Western Massachusetts from Arkhangelsk in 2002. His column focuses on the Russian-American community. He can be reached at apeshkov@ repub.com

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