Part 2. ABOUT THE AUTHOR OF APRAHAM HOJA OF AINTAB, Part Two of Seven Parts

Continuation of the Preface to APRAHAM HOJA OF AINTAB - Part 2 of 7 parts

In the early 1860’s in Marash, approximately 40 years after Rev. Trowbridge began preaching the Word in Turkey, a young man by the name of Sarkis Bilezikjian (father of Rev. Vartan Bilezikian), who was most knowledgeable in the Bible and the Christian tradition within the Armenian Apostolic Church, and a Deacon in the Armenian Apostolic Church in Marash, was sent out by the priests of the Armenian Church to confront the missionaries and ask them to leave the city. Armenians, he would tell them, were the first nation to accept Christianity, and certainly were already Christians in the full sense.  After several months of discussion with the missionaries, however, Sarkis Bilezikjian saw the light, and, like Trowbridge, was convinced of the need for worshippers to understand the Word of the Lord in their common every day language as opposed to the ancient language of the Armenian Apostolic Church (which no lay person could understand).  The worshiper needed to worship directly rather than through an intercessor. As a result of his new understanding of the need for his community to read and understand the Bible, Sarkis Bilezikjian left the Armenian Apostolic Church to become the first Armenian Protestant minister in Marash. Rev. Sarkis Bilezikjian, who, for this action, was disowned by his very wealthy Armenian Apostolic family, established the First Armenian Protestant Church in Marash. Birinji Kilisa, as it was known, which according to my dad, was located directly behind his house in Kumbet.  [Later to become pastor of this church was Rev. Abraham H. Hartunian who wrote NEITHER TO LAUGH NOR TO WEEP - - A MEMOIR OF THE ARMENIAN GENOCIDE, a volume which his son, the Rev. Vartan Hartunian, minister of the First Armenian Church in Belmont, Massachusetts, translated from Armenian into English.] 

[The Reverend Sarkis Bilezikjian and his wife Marta had five sons -- Moses, Arakel, Garabed, Alexan and Vartan (whose twin died in childbirth), and a daughter, Gurju.  The eldest son born in 1865, Moses, my grandfather, whom Rev. Vartan Bilezikian refers to in his book APRAHAM HOJA OF AINTAB only as Brother Moses, was not only his spiritual brother, but his eldest brother by birth.]

To be continued . . .