Bethan McKernan
The numbers at the St. Georges Armenian
Apostolic Church in Addis Ababa are not adding up. Church records show
an average of two funerals a year, but a wedding only every three years
and a baptism every five.
“Some people don’t come to church vertically. Only horizontally,” Vartkes Nalbandian said with a laugh.
Vartkes is among a small handful of
people keeping Ethiopia’s Armenian community alive. Despite a fall in
numbers from a peak of 1,200 in the 1960s to less than 100 people today,
the Armenian school, church and social club still open their doors.
“There is more to a community than just
statistics. We are proud of the Armenian contribution to Ethiopia. It’s
worth fighting for,” said 64-year old Vartkes, the church’s fulltime
acting archdeacon since the last priest left in 2002.
But given the shrinking numbers, the fight can feel daunting.
After the Armenian Genocide in
1915, Haile Selassie, Ethiopia’s regent who later became Emperor, opened
his arms to the Armenian people even wider, adopting 40 orphans as
wards of court. In return, the Ethio-Armenians proved fiercely loyal.
One trader used his European connections to buy arms for Ethiopia’s
resistance movement against the Italian occupation during World War II.
Others ran an underground newspaper. Several gave their lives in service
of their adopted homeland.
“Those were the best days,” said 61-year
old Salpi Nalbandian, who runs a leather business with her brother
Vartkes and other family members. “We were valued members of the court.
We made the crowns the emperors wore on their heads. We were not like
the Italians, we weren’t invaders. We contributed.”
But the community’s fortunes have changed through the years.
Ethio-Armenians had their property and
businesses confiscated when the communist Derg seized power in 1974.
Many families left then, fearing for their lives. The Nalbandians
stayed, determined not to give up on a country they had called home for
four generations.
Salpi and Vartkes’ musical family has
made a lasting contribution to Ethiopia’s heritage. Great uncle Kervork
wrote Ethiopia’s first national anthem, and their father Nerses became
well known for his pioneering work in Ethio-Jazz, which blends
traditional Ethiopian five-tone scales with the diminished scales of
Western jazz.
Ethio-Armenians are gradually resembling
a diaspora within a diaspora. Children and grandchildren who live in
the U.S. and Canada now make pilgrimages to Addis to see the place where
their ancestors grew up.
Most of the Armenian buildings in the
Armenian “safar” — or neighborhood — in Addis Ababa’s city center are
now empty or gone, victim to the city’s appetite for high-rise buildings
that are beginning to dominate the skyline.
St. George’s Church holds maybe 200
people but seems larger because it often stands dark and empty. Golden
orthodox crosses are the only objects that catch the light from high
small windows in the church’s pointed dome. The African sunshine
struggles to brighten the church’s dark green walls.
The remaining Armenian families are
scattered around Addis’ outskirts, including the Nalbandians, who were
forced to vacate their family home.
The only reason the house, which in a
traditional Armenian style has a wrap-round balcony — is still standing
is because Salpi is fighting against the local government to preserve it
as a museum dedicated to her father’s life and work.
She has had some help upholding her
father’s legacy from Aramazt Kalayjian, an Armenian filmmaker. He has
being working on “Tezeta,” a documentary about Ethio-Armenian music,
since 2012.
“The only remnants of a great
cross-pollination of cultures are the few Armenian community members
left, the music, history books, and memories that tell of the
relationship between Armenians and Ethiopians,” Kalayjian said.
Vartkes Nalbandian disagrees with
Kalayjian’s view that the community is fading. He notes that a
Syrian-Armenian man recently visited the Addis community with a view to
moving there with his family.
“The school is open, the church is open,
the club is open,” he said. “It doesn’t matter if I open the church on a
Sunday and preach to many people or just a handful. As long as our
spirit is strong, our identity is, too.”
Associated Press, August 2, 2014
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