The Restoration of the Catholicosate of the Great House of Cilicia After Exile
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.15826/qr.2022.4.728Keywords:
Catholicosate of the Great House of Cilicia, Armenian Apostolic Church, Cilicia, Antelias, Armenian diaspora, Armenian genocide, forced migrationAbstract
The Catholicosate of the Great House of Cilicia played an important role in the life of the Armenians of Cilicia. The history of the Catholicosate is divided into two historical periods: “Cilician” and “Diasporian”. This article focuses on the “Diasporian” period of one of the Hierarchical Sees of the Armenian Church in the 1920s–1930s. The historiography of Armenia has never given serious attention to the investigation of the History of the Catholicosate of Cilicia, particularly with respect to the issue of the forced exile of the Catholicosate and the process of its diasporization in the 1920s–1930s. This article focuses on those issues, analyzing the process of diasporization of the Cilician See, its reconstruction under the new circumstances, and its establishment in Antelias (Lebanon). Not all refugees or migrants create a diaspora community, in fact, the most likely result of both voluntary and forced dispersions is assimilation into the host country’s culture. From the analytical perspective of Diaspora Studies, refugees or migrants transform their dispersion into a diaspora only when they insist on sustaining a community and maintaining a national identity. Theorists of modern Diaspora Studies suggest several factors under which dispersed people become an organized diaspora. For this, the role of national institutions is very important, for instance, spiritual-religious organizations. Thus, it is a very acute problem to understand the process of diasporization of a Church organization and its role in the reconstruction of Armenian communities. Different kinds of forced or voluntary migrations are still very common and active in the modern world. Thus, the case discussed in the present article could be useful for understanding many similar processes and historical examples. This research is based on archival documents (including those from the National Archive of Armenia and archival documents of the Catholicosate of Cilicia), the official journal of the Holy See of Cilicia, and existing studies connected to the subject. The analysis of these sources utilizes a comparative-historical methodology. Analyzing the collected data and using the mentioned research method the following problems are discussed and summarized in the article: the forced migration of the Catholicosate of the Great House of Cilicia and the process of the reconstruction of it under new circumstances; Antelias as a new spiritual and religious center of the Diaspora after the Armenian Genocide; the role of the Cilician See in the process of the diasporization of Armenian refugees in Syria-Lebanon; the activities of the Catholicosate in their attempts to preserve the national identity of Armenian communities in the Near East after the Genocide.
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