New Armenian church clings to tradition
Members of the Pasadena parish wanted stone arches and stained glass
in the $5-million structure that opens today.
By Deborah Schoch
Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
September 9, 2007
In an age when new churches can be as boxy and boring as shopping
malls, the members of St. Gregory the Illuminator longed for arches.
They craved warm-hued stone dug from quarries in their ancestors’
Armenia. While other growing parishes settled for former banks or
castoff older churches, this parish housed in a former Coca-Cola
distribution center wanted a building all its own — a brand-new
structure but one that would look centuries old.
Now, the graceful dome of their new stone-walled church rises 85 feet
above the auto parts stores of Pasadena’s Colorado Boulevard, a
silhouette that recalls the skyline of Athens or Cairo.
Today at noon, church leaders will formally consecrate the church with
a ceremony known as Navagadik. Festivities began Saturday evening with
the opening of the church’s carved walnut doors as priests chanted the
Armenian liturgy and incense wafted upward.
Member Arthur Kokozian, whose parents brought him to the parish in
1971 when he was 11 months old, said he felt goose bumps as he heard
the singing.
"It’s part of our DNA," he said.
The story of this church says much about the history of the burgeoning
Armenian religious community in the American Southwest and why, for
many of its members, church architecture matters so much.
As those members put the finishing touches on the new St. Gregory the
Illuminator Armenian Apostolic Church, they are rejoicing in the
triumph of tradition: a marble-framed baptismal font, jewel-toned
stained-glass windows and particularly the rounded arches both outside
the church and setting off its glowing cream interior.
"We didn’t want a box. We wanted arches," said project manager Hampo
Nazerian, motioning at the windows and dome.
"They’re inviting, they’re warm, not squared or cold. Arches are like
arms outstretched," said longtime volunteer Marguerite Hougasian,
whose father helped start the Pasadena parish in 1947. The new
church’s Old World style reflects the importance of tradition in the
1,700-year-old Armenian faith, she said. "It’s a way of strengthening
and holding to the faith, keeping us bonded to our belief."
The building has a sturdy copper roof and drain pipes. Although early
designs for the steel-framed church called for stucco walls, members
later decided on an exterior of stone ordered from Armenia, in
Southwestern Asia east of Turkey.
The stone was carried by ship to Houston, where it was delayed by U.S.
customs officials unhappy with the shipping pallets, said architect
John Byram of Pasadena. Project costs climbed from the $1.3 million
approved in 1997 to more than $5 million today. Some church leaders
blame the increase on delays and problems with initial designs and
contractors.
Some members say that a stone-walled church serves to anchor the
Armenian community after centuries of turbulence that forced thousands
to flee the churches of their native lands. They point to the early
20th century genocide of more than 1 million Armenians by Ottoman
Turks, and to more recent emigration from Lebanon, the former Soviet
Union and Iran.
Many sought out Southern California, now home to at least 300,000
Armenian Americans.
The Burbank-based Western Diocese of the Armenian Church of North
America is the largest outside of Armenia, said Archbishop Hovnan
Derderian, primate of the diocese. That growth has church leaders
rushing to train new priests and aid new parishes now renting church
space in several cities ringing Los Angeles.
An October groundbreaking is planned for a cathedral in Burbank,
followed by a church in Palm Desert, Derderian said. More churches are
planned in La Cañada Flintridge, Palmdale and other nearby cities as
well as Seattle, Las Vegas and Denver.
That growth spurt comes as urban parishes of other faiths struggle
with shrinking memberships.
Congregations of 100 or 200 people meet in high-vaulted churches built
for four or five times that amount. Some parishes have sold their
buildings to Korean or other fast-growing churches.
Other new churches are moving into former movie theaters and auditoriums.
In older cities like Pasadena, new churches are a rarity, and St.
Gregory is the first in at least 10 years to be built from scratch.
New church buildings are more common in suburbs, but few feature
expensive imported stone or centuries-old details.
Some fundamentalist and evangelical Christian parishes have erected
so-called mega-churches with an auditorium feel and warehouse-store
boxiness. Many new churches "could be office complexes, could be
corporate headquarters," said University of Hartford architecture
chair and author Michael J. Crosbie.
He is editor of Faith and Form magazine, which is geared to artists
and architects who design religious buildings. Some critics, he said,
believe that this surge of "neutral" religious architecture appeals to
churchgoers raised in mainline faiths who now are drawn to more
evangelical parishes and are leery of stained glass and carved stone.
At the same time, some conservative Roman Catholic leaders are urging
a return to more traditional church styles, and some 20th century
immigrants, such as the Armenians, retain a preference for old-time
architecture.
Although the head of the worldwide Armenian church will visit next
month to consecrate St. Gregory’s main altar, the archbishop will
conduct today’s ceremony.
Last week, volunteers raced to ready the new building. And some began
marinating lamb three days ago in the state-of-the-art kitchen,
preparing to make harissa, a traditional porridge-like dish of stewed
lamb, coarsely ground wheat and chopped onions, cooked in a large
caldron on the church grounds.
The low roar of an electric sander resounded through the sanctuary
Thursday evening as a worker smoothed the edges of a walnut front
door.
A female choir member took time before practice to stand atop a high
pedestal-style lift, wiping dust from a stained-glass window. In a
side dressing room hung with elaborate embroidered robes, a deacon
polished two old church icons.
A musician practiced on a borrowed organ under the white dome, its 12
windows honoring the apostles.
Despite the soaring price tag, church members still say they are glad
they moved ahead and invested in such features as Armenian stone.
Few parishes today go to the trouble and expense of importing stone
from overseas, magazine editor Crosbie said.
"I can’t imagine that happening in an Episcopalian church or a
Presbyterian church, because those congregations are less regionally
based as to where they came from," he said.
Members of St. Gregory, however, take great pride in that stone.
"You get a sense that a piece of Armenia is here," said Greg Diamond,
a strong advocate of a new church when he was on the parish council in
the late 1990s.
The St. Gregory complex, which includes an existing school, sits
farther east on Colorado Boulevard than the grand old churches of
Pasadena clustered near City Hall.
Still, its high stone walls echo that architecture, said Sue Mossman,
executive director of Pasadena Heritage, a nonprofit historic
preservation group.
"To have a church of this size and this traditional architecture on
Colorado Boulevard certainly harkens back to the past," she said, "and
it certainly says something about this congregation."
Still, the church did part with tradition on one important point,
Diamond said. While the altar in Armenian churches is supposed to face
east, the land under the church runs north and south. After much
debate, the archbishop at the time granted special permission for the
altar of the new church to sit at the south wall.
Source: sep09,0,1981136.story?page=2&coll=la-home-cent er
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress
