New Apostles Instead of the Old Ones
00:00, June 6, 2006 | Freedom of thought, conscience and religionRafael Movsisyan, who represents Armenian community of New Apostolic Church once believed in God differently. He regularly went to church, lit a candle, was baptized, as the members of the Apostolic Church . Only in 90s, he was involved in another religious organization and became a bishop. “The faith of our Church is that we wait for the advent of Jesus”-says the bishop.
The church established at the beginning of 90s in Armenia is considered a direction of new apostles which came to substitute the belief of old Apostles. Rafael Movsisyan tells that one of their Apostles met today’s Catholicos in Frankfurt and he advised to create this direction in Armenia. In this church they are sure that a man is born free, without faith and he himself decides his belief. The most interesting thing is that they do not accept the word “must”. The bishop of the church says that a man is born free and it is by his own decision that he admits or rejects any ideology. This is the reason that while preaching the Gospel the representatives of this direction keep away from strangers and obliging or forcing their viewpoints. For them “faith is born from the belief”. Preaching does not mean to go from one street to another with the Gospel in your hand. The preaching in the church is done in a spoken languge. The prayer, again in spoken language, follows it and then it is the time for the ritual of consecrated bread, which ends in a prayer. Divine service lasts about an hour. The new Apostles admit the existence of the heaven and hell, the holy trinity, baptizing with water and they exclude religion. They also exclude that a person idolizes this or that believer. “It is God’s part and a person should not meddle in it”-explains the bishop. In spite of the fact that they do not accept the attitude of the Armenian Apostolic Church towards other religious directions, they neither criticize nor blame them. Moreover, they do not have problems with the Armenian Apostolic Church , though they do not consider that lighting a candle, crossing oneself and other rituals are the basis for the belief. “By repenting you can redeem your sins”-Rafael Movsisyan presents the ideology of their church. I am totally against using the word “sect”, at the same time they think that the sect is the organization, which does not have rituals and churches.
Here they say that Armenia cannot be considered a Christian state, as if a person is not baptized, he is not Christian. In Armenia we can find people who are not baptized.
The faith of the New Apostolic Church is closer to Protestantism. This direction as a church was formed in the 18 th century. In Armenia it exists in 10 communities. There are over one thousand members. If someone wants to be admitted in this Church, he is given half a year. He studies the belief of the Church, he is studied and tried by the new Apostles and in this way he is either admitted or not. 20-25 percent of new apostles from various social groups are intelligentsia; youth prevail in the church. In general, the representatives of this religious organization do not have problems in different public spheres. While serving in the army youth keep the Bible with them together with weapon and they get familiar their friends with the words of God. They are proud of being called new apostles and speak about it open in different instances. New Apostles do charity not only for their followers but also for people of other faiths. They have various children’s groups whom they teach computer skills, foreign languages. They don’t have any experience of cooperation with other religious organizations. “There is a lot of envy”-Bishop Rafael says and insists that it wouldn’t be possible without it. According to him, worldly problems prevail in inter-church relations, which later turn into faith problems. “What is the fault of God that someone called him Allah, and the other one called him Buddha and so on”-Rafael Movsisyan presents the obstacles for inter-church relations,-unfortunately, there is no mutual help, each insist on his being right.
Naira Bulghadaryan