paul chaderjian

Two broadcast journalists’ eyewitness account of the harsh realities in India by Paul Chaderjian Tangra, India - The scene is hell on Earth - a revolting, gagging smell, eye-irritating smog, thousands of years of filth,, with fresh refuse being dumped onto the street. Humans live like savages. Naked kids defecate on the street. Men urinate out in the open. Rats run in puddles of human waste on streets people call home. Rabid and sickly dogs dig through garbage for food. This is the "incredible" India the ads on CNN sing about. And in this incredible India are two old friends - Ani Hovannisian-Kevorkian and me - stumbling out of tour buses to enter the grounds of the Holy Trinity Armenian Church in Tangra, a suburb of Kolkata.  Security guards separate residents staring with great interest from the foreign tourists that include Ani and me. Ani anchored the English News on Horizon TV every Saturday night decades ago when there was only one week...

Liberation ideologists in India: Forebears of modern Armenian political parties Armenians in India – a seminar Richard Hovannisian highlights the visionaries of Madras by Paul Chaderjian   Published: Monday November 24, 2008 Tangra, India - A hundred years before the late-19th-century Armenian revolutionaries made history, a group of intellectuals in Madras was already laying the blueprint of why Armenians should think about emancipation from Turks and Persians, what an independent Armenian government would guarantee its citizens, and how a free homeland and diaspora communities should be ruled. The contemporaries of the American and French revolutionaries, the Armenians of Madras were one of the most important topics discussed by Armenian history scholar Richard Hovannisian at a seminar at the community center of the Holy Trinity Armenian Church in Tangra on Tuesday, November 14. The former chairperson of the Armenian Community Council of India opened the se...

Two broadcast journalists’ eyewitness account of the harsh realities in India by Paul Chaderjian Tangra, India - The scene is hell on Earth - a revolting, gagging smell, eye-irritating smog, thousands of years of filth with fresh refuse being dumped onto the street. Humans live like savages. Naked kids defecate on the street. Men urinate out in the open. Rats run in puddles of human waste on streets people call home. Rabid and sickly dogs dig through garbage for food. This is the "incredible" India the ads on CNN sing about. And in this incredible India are two old friends - Ani Hovannisian-Kevorkian and me - stumbling out of tour buses to enter the grounds of the Holy Trinity Armenian Church in Tangra, a suburb of Kolkata.   Security guards separate residents staring with great interest from the foreign tourists that include Ani and me. Ani anchored the English News on Horizon TV every Saturday night decades ago when there was only one weekly...

History comes to life in Tangra, India by Paul Chaderjian   Published: Monday November 24, 2008 Kolkata, India - Students at the Armenian College and Philanthropic Academy welcomed Catholicos Karekin II and guests from around the world as part of the weeklong celebrations of Armenians in India that took place the second week of November. One of the guests, noted scholar Richard G. Hovannisian, spoke to the Armenian Reporter about the Wednesday, November 12, program at the college. RGH: I thought it was a very well done collage of Armenian history, the sadness of it, the occasional retreats and ultimately the spirit optimism and survival and going ahead despite all the obstacles and giving hope for the future. I thought it was very well done. I saw around me a great deal of emotion from everyone who witnessed it. It was done by the students, and I thought it was very creative. The overall program was interesting. I would like to have seen, maybe with all the...

--> by Paul Chaderjian Armenian Reporter editorial Thanksgiving 2008 As we take time to reflect and express our gratitude this Thanksgiving week, we are first grateful that you have made the Armenian Reporter a part of your Armenian experience. We are also grateful that we have learned from our forebears the idea of hope: that what we want individually and collectively will come to be and that circumstances and situations will always evolve to serve the greater good. We are grateful that generations of our ancestors had been hopeful and allowed us to pass this foundation of our identity to the next generation of Armenian-Americans. This four-letter word, hope, is an easy yet powerful concept that has kept our people on track through good times and bad, through blessings and catastrophes, poverty and prosperity, through oppression and persecution, foreign rule and independence; and for having hope, we are grateful. Hope is the attitude that has made us...

Holy Armenian treasure in Saidabad was once abandoned by Paul Chaderjian Saidabad, India - The Service of Calling ceremony for Deacon Harutyun Hambardzumyan, who was ordained by Catholicos Karekin II as Father Avedis on Saturday, November 15, took place a day before at the Holy Virgin Mary Church in Saidabad. The Saidabad church sits on 12 acres of land in a remote suburb of the city of Hyderabad, where no Armenian lives. It was once abandoned and a former chairperson of the Armenian Community Council of India wanted to give it away until the Indian-Armenian community and the Armenian Church intervened. "The Saidabad church is hours and hours away from Kolkata," said pastor of the Armenian Church in India, Very Rev. Fr. Oshagan Gulgulian. "But after you come here, you receive a spiritual fulfillment." Fr. Gulgulian then quoted poet Vahan Tekeyan's, "the Armenian Church is the birthplace of my soul," to explain the spiritual renewal pilgrims ex...

Karekin II ordains local deacon into priesthood by Paul Chaderjian   Published: Wednesday November 19, 2008   Kolkata, India - Avedis - or good news - was the word resonating at the historic celebration of the 300th anniversary of the founding of the Armenian Holy Church of Nazareth in Kolkata on Saturday, November 15. Avedis - a word used in the Armenian Church to congratulate congregants on holidays like Christmas and Easter - was also the new name chosen by Catholicos Karekin II for Deacon Harutyun Hambardzumyan, who was ordained into the priesthood. The moving ordination and liturgical services were performed in front of an illuminated, vibrantly alive, gold-and-silver altar lit with candles. The powerful and precise 26-member choir of the Mother Cathedral of Holy Etchmiadzin provided the live soundtrack of the service from the balcony. In the pews stood a diverse audience of congregants from all corners of the world, who had come on a pilgrimage from ...