July 1, 2020
174th Anniversary of the Armenian Evangelical Church
THE ARMENIAN EVANGELICAL MOVEMENT
BECOMES THE ARMENIAN EVANGELICAL CHURCH
The first Armenian Evangelical Church was established in Istanbul, Turkey on Sunday, July 1, 1846. The founding members were 37 men and 3 women.
The Armenian Evangelical Church has 174 years of glorious history. In the formative years, the Church had the assistance of the missionaries from the West. However, the movement was rooted in Armenian culture and history.
The first Armenian Evangelical Church was ARMENIAN, because it was born to serve the Armenian people.
It was EVANGELICAL, because it accepted the Bible as the Canon for their faith, more than the liturgies and the traditions of the Church.
It was a CHURCH because it fulfilled the conditions of a church prescribed in the Gospel.
THE PROCLAMATION OF STRUGGLE FOR FREEDOM OF CONSCIENCE
The 40 founding members of the first Armenian Evangelical Church of Armenia 174 years ago declared:
“We respect the Armenian authorities. We accept with reverence the national traditions, sanctified by the blood of the martyrs. We love the Armenian nation with the whole heart and whole mind. But the freedom of conscience we consider more precious than all else, and we shall not allow that any authority, or tradition, or command take away from our hands the Gospel of Christ, or be obstacle to us and our children when we come to offer our spiritual worship to God the Savior without mediator and without intercessor, according to our conscience.”
Mihran Jizmejian
AMAC Chairman
