Plans announced for new local Armenian cathedral
By Alex Dobuzinskis, Staff Writer
Los Angeles Daily News
Nov 12 2004
Hopes are high for building an Armenian cathedral able to accommodate
600 worshippers across from Woodbury University, where an Armenian
diocese has been headquartered since 1997.
The Western Diocese of the Armenian Church of North America was based
at a cathedral in Hollywood until the 1994 Northridge Earthquake
damaged the building. The diocese took up temporary headquarters in
Pasadena before moving to Burbank.
Although the diocese last month opened a one-room library at its
headquarters at 3325 N. Glenoaks Blvd., it has no cathedral on the
property and about 50 worshippers pray on Sunday inside the building
before a movable altar.
“Since it’s not an official church building, people prefer to go to
an established, consecrated church. But if someone is faithful, it
doesn’t matter if you have it in the church building or the parking
lot. When you have prayer, God is everywhere,” said the Rev. Sipan
Mekhsian of the diocese.
The cathedral is expected to cost more than $6 million to build.
About $2 million has been pledged, fund raising is ongoing and the
diocese hopes to begin construction within the year, said Toluca Lake
resident Armen Hampar, 72, who chairs the building committee.
“The Armenian community that seems to have spilled over from Glendale
into Burbank and North Hollywood … are all looking for a place
where they can come and worship,” Hampar said.
The project is called Mother Cathedral, although the building is
expected to have a different name once consecrated. It would have
an interior of roughly 10,000 square feet and would be built in a
traditional Armenian architectural style.
Archbishop Hovnan Derderian, formerly the primate of the Canadian
Diocese, took the helm of the Western Diocese last year. He would
lead services at the new cathedral.
The Western Diocese has churches throughout the Los Angeles-area and
the western states and a school under its jurisdiction in Pasadena.
Hampar said the diocese has grown in the 30 years he has been involved
with it.
“We’ve gotten waves of Armenians, all from different cultures depending
on where they come from, coming to Los Angeles,” Hampar said.