Historic Ordination: Tehran Diocese of the Armenian Church Ordains Deaconess

Hratch Tchilingirian

 

The Primate of the Diocese of Tehran (under the jurisdiction of the Catholicosate of Cilicia) ordained a young woman as a deaconess in Tehran’s St. Sarkis Mother Church on Sept. 25, 2017. Even as the office of deaconess had existed in Armenian Church convents for centuries, this was a historic first. It is the first time that a lay woman, not a nun, was ordained a “parish deacon.”

Twenty-four year old Ani-Kristi Manvelian, an anesthesiologist by profession, was ordained—along with Mayis Mateosian—by Archbishop Sebouh Sarkissian, the Primate of the Diocese of Tehran.

The Armenian Deaconess and Her Forgotten Role in the Armenian Apostolic Church

Knarik O. Meneshian (*)

Since childhood, I’ve always had a reverence and love for the Armenian Church. I joined the choir when I was a teenager. The Armenian All Saints Apostolic Church, as some of you will recall, was on Lemoyn Street in Chicago at the time. One day, Der Hayr Maronian, the parish priest then, handed me a scroll and told me to go home and study it and be prepared to read it the following week. It was a long scroll, and beautifully handwritten in Armenian. The following week during church service, I was motioned to ascend the altar where I unrolled the scroll and read from the Book of Daniel (Դանիէլի գիրք). I’ve never forgotten the serene feeling that came over me in church that day as I read to the congregation.