1st Edition
Armenian Christianity Today Identity Politics and Popular Practice
Armenian Christianity Today examines contemporary religious life and the social, political, and cultural functions of religion in the post-Soviet Republic of Armenia and in the Armenian Diaspora worldwide. Scholars from a range of countries and disciplines explore current trends and everyday religiosity, particularly within the Armenian Apostolic Church (AAC), and amongst Armenian Catholics, Protestants and vernacular religions. Themes examined include: Armenian grass-roots religiosity; the changing forms of regular worship and devotion; various types of congregational life; and the dynamics of social composition of both the clergy and lay believers. Exploring through the lens of Armenia, this book considers wider implications of ’postsecular’ trends in the role of global religion.
Introduction
Alexander Agadjanian
PART I: The Republic of Armenia: Religious Revival and Renewal
1 "One Nation, One Faith, One Church": The Armenian Apostolic Church and the Ethno-Religion in Post-Soviet Armenia
Konrad Siekierski
2 Church, God and Society: Toward the Anthropology of Church Construction in Armenia
Yulia Antonyan
3 Where Did We Come From? Creationism versus Evolution in Armenian Public Schools
Satenik Mkrtchyan
4 The Religious Modernity of the Brotherhood: A New Face of Armenian Grassroots Christianity
Alexander Agadjanian
5 Evangelical and Pentecostal Communities in Armenia: Negotiating Identity and Accommodation
Anna Ohanjanyan
PART II: Armenian Diasporas: Puzzles of Identity
6 Identity, Borders and Religious Belonging: Armenians between Two Spiritual Centers, Etchmiadzin and Cilicia
Hovhannes Hovhannisyan
7 Venerating the Saints, Remembering the City: Armenian Memorial Practices and Community Formation in Contemporary Istanbul
Christopher Sheklian
8 The Three Religions of Armenians in Lebanon
Irina Papkova
9 The Chronotopes of the Armenian Diaspora in Romania: Religious Feasts and Shrines in the Making of Community
Konrad Siekierski
10 Armenians in St. Petersburg: Belonging to the Church as a Key Marker of Ethnic Identity
Anatolii Tokmantcev
11 Finger on the Pulse: Armenian Identity and Religiosity in Southern California
Dyron Daughrity and Nicholas Cumming
12 Sanctuary, Community or Museum? The Apostolic Church in the Life-Worlds of a Sample of American Armenians
Sara Kärkkäinen Terian
Biography
Alexander Agadjanian is a professor at the Center for the Study of Religion at the Russian State University for Humanities and has taught at a number of institutions in Russia, central Europe and the USA. His research interests include a wide range of topics on religion and modernity, approached from historical, sociological and anthropological perspectives. His areas of specialization have been first Southeast Asia and later post-Soviet Eastern Europe and Eurasia. He edited a few books in Russian, including a volume on religion and secularism; on current religious practices in Russia; and the studies of Russian Orthodox congregations. He was a co-editor of the volume ’Eastern Orthodoxy in a Global Age’ (AltaMira Press, 2006) and of a special issue ’Evangelical, Pentecostal and Charismatic Churches in Latin America and Eastern Europe.’ (Religion, State and Society, Vol. 40 (1), 2012).
"... a book of high academic level on Armenian Christianity is bound to be extremely interesting. (...) What makes this book particularly interesting, is the combination of taking seriously the history and legacy of the Armenian Christian tradition, dominated by but not limited to the AAC, and a series of "realistic" sociological and anthropological approaches."
- Evert van der Zweerde in Journal of Eastern Christian Studies, 68(1-2), 2016