Window Quarterly
Vol. 5, No. 3 & 4, 1995

[Permission is granted to use, print, reproduce this article 
provided the following acknowledgment is given: From 
Window Quarterly 5, 3-4 (1995).

***

WOMEN AND THE ARMENIAN CHURCH

H.H. Karekin I, Catholicos of All Armenians
on the occasion of the UN Fourth International Conference 
on Women in Beijing


I HEARTILY WELCOME ALL SISTERS IN GOD WHO 
ARE assembled in Beijing for the Fourth World Conference 
on Women. I pray God that their deliberations may promote 
the women's growing participation in human life in today's 
world. Hereunder I share with you some of my thoughts in 
the light of your interest.
	
1. Women are part and parcel, integral component of 
humankind; their involvement in their respective societies is 
of paramount significance for the betterment of the quality of 
human life taken in a holistic approach. Whatever God has 
granted to womanly human nature should be fully shared 
with all human beings without any kind of discrimination. 
Their grace is God's gift, and human beings and 
considerations of societal and sociological character should 
not prevent women from offering the fruits of that grace to 
all humankind.
	
2. Women have always been present and often very active in 
the life of our Lord Jesus Christ and in the life of His church. 
The Armenian Church Tradition is eloquent in providing 
ample evidence for the women's impact-making role in the 
life of the Armenian people all along the past twenty 
centuries. The first Armenian person who ever gave her life 
for the sake of Christ was a women, St. Santoukht, in the first 
century. Women in Armenian life have been preachers, 
educators, members of Religious Orders, benefactors, most 
active servants in social services, mothers par excellence, 
even martyrs in defense of and for the lively preservation of 
the Christian faith.
	
3. The Armenian Church does not allow the priestly 
ordination for women. This attitude should never be 
considered as an attitude of discrimination. The Church 
follows the Tradition (with a capital T) and has to respect 
that Tradition. The question of ordination of women has 
never emanated from the life of the Armenian Church. It has 
been considered as a foreign question that has not affected 
the life of the Church. Women in the Armenian Church are 
fully satisfied with their active engagement in all aspects and 
areas of service of the Church. 
	
4. Divorce and remarriage are allowed in the Armenian 
Church but only on grounds of the teachings of the Gospel. 
Divorce is possible but most difficult to acquire, because the 
Church does preach the sanctity of marriage and does 
everything possible to promote normal life, particularly in 
modern societies, and which have to be handled in the spirit 
of mutual sacrifices. 
	
5. The sanctity of human life is recognized above all 
considerations. Life is the gift of God and should be 
respected on all levels and in all cases. The refusal of 
abortion emanates from such basic principle as taught in the 
Bible and in the Tradition of the Church. However, the 
Armenian Church has not formulated any dogmatic stand on 
this matter. It tries to build up and cultivate this principle in 
the hearts and minds of its people recognizing their freedom 
to exercise such principle according to their Christian 
conscience and moral responsibility.
	
6. In Armenia of today I rejoice by seeing the role of women 
in constant growth. As the head of the Church I think I was 
first Catholicos of All Armenians in whose election women 
took part. 
	
7. Surely, the Church is not a political institution. Political 
engagements is not its immediate and primary concern. 
Political issues and actions are left to the State and to 
political parties. The Church only comes in and speaks and 
acts on such issues which are described as political but have 
a bearing on moral, spiritual values, particularly when these 
latter are not given full consideration or are being violated. 
This is why the Armenian Church manifests its concern for 
the genocide perpetrated against the Armenian nation by the 
Turks in 1915 to 1920s. For human life has been destroyed 
and the consequences of the genocide continue to affect the 
Armenian life all around the world. The same concern the 
Church expresses for any other nation, people or group.
	
8. I sincerely believe that the United Nations is rendering a 
greatly beneficial service to human life of today and for the 
decades to follow, by enhancing the concern and the care of 
humankind for the advancement of women's role in human 
life. Ancient injustices should be redressed and women 
should feel that they are equal to men in the eyes of God, the 
Creator of the world and the Giver of life.

KAREKIN I
Catholicos of All Armenians

Etchmiadzin, August 1995


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