The brief postwar cooperation between ARF and the Anti-ARF Symphony Orchestra (AASO) ended abruptly and bitterly. In the Middle East, people were very disturbed by the fate of nearly 100,000 repatriates recklessly sent to Stalin's hell in Armenia. Most met misery, and many died.

People were angry at the engineers of Nerkakht (Repatriation): the Church, Ramgavars, Hunchags and Bolsheviks.

THE COLD WAR
Everyone worried about communist infiltration. Soviets used Etchmiadzin's dioceses as footholds for espionage. In 1948-49, the Shah of Iran ousted two Etchmiadzin prelates for spying; there was no hierarchical leadership in two Iranian dioceses for more than 10 years.

Paranoia was rampant. There were absurd claims that Catholicos Karekin I of Cilicia was "procommunist." Then it was the turn of Catholicos Vazken and Patriarch Nersoyan of Jerusalem. During the Cold War, charges of procommunist activity caused grief to those being accused. Many Tashnagtsagans were unabashed McCarthyites.

THE ARMENIAN POLITICAL STAGE IN THE MIDDLE EAST
Paradoxically, worldwide anticommunist frenzy made the socialist ARF a hot, desirable political entity. The party usually sided with ruling governments, was well organized and delivered. The ARF was enormously popular, though Tashnagtsagans were inclined to use strong-arm tactics. So, the Tashnags became natural allies of non-socialist governments - Lebanon and Iran in particular. Lebanon had the largest concentration of Armenians in the Diaspora.

Also paradoxically, pro-capitalist Ramgavars and other members of the Anti-ARF Symphony Orchestra (AASO) were seen as procommunist, and therefore suspect. In Iran, as in Lebanon, members of the AASO clumsily engaged in overt anti-government activity. In socialist countries like Syria, Bolsheviks and Hunchags denounced ARF sympathizers as CIA agents and terrorists.

ELECTION OF PRO-ARF CATHOLICOS ZAREH I
The Catholicate of Cilicia was under AASO control. By 1956, however, the tables were turned. The ARF mustered enough delegates to have pro-ARF Archbishop Zareh Payaslian elected catholicos. Payaslian was a very well-qualified, spiritually sound clergyman.

The AASO geared for total war. Newspapers fed the public a regular diet of divisive lies and diatribes. Players vilified Payaslian and pressed for Church Unity, insisting that the Catholicate of Cilicia should be subservient and under Etchmiadzin. The Tashnag press was not kinder to the enemies of the ARF.

In the early forties, the two catholicates agreed to allow two reciprocal votes in the election of their respective catholicoi. It is widely held that, in 1956, Ramgavars, Hunchags and Bolsheviks nudged the Catholicos of All Armenians to cast a personal veto against Payaslian. Soviets allowed Vazken Vehapar to travel all the way to Lebanon, the first time any clergyman of any stature had left the USSR from behind the Iron Curtain. The goal was to stir up anti-ARF emotions with arguments like: Catholicos Vazken is a saintly man; he comes straight from mystical, sacred Etchmiadzin; Etchmiadzin is the center of the Church, that's where everything started; the Church is One; the Catholicos of All Armenians knows best; the ARF and Payaslian are trying to split the Church, etc. Never mind that the Church of Armenia was practically reduced to bare bones, and that religion was legally and officially banned in Armenia.

The AASO encouraged people to block the election of Payaslian.

The scene was surreal. Soviets, busy dismantling the Church in Armenia, allowed the head of the Church to come out from behind the Iron Curtain so he could bring the Church together. For the first time ever, the Catholicos of All Armenians personally interfered with the internal affairs of another, independent catholicate. Armenians were being stirred to unrest within their host country.

The government of Lebanon saw this bizarre scenario as a communist subversion. It gave the Catholicos of All Armenians a regal reception but sent the army to the streets, so the election would proceed.

Archbishop Zareh Payaslian was elected Catholicos of Cilicia in spite of Vazken Vehapar's protests.

Humiliated, Vazken I left Lebanon in a huff. He had been cruelly used. Later, when he could speak his mind, he acknowledged being manipulated. His muted public responses to Cilicia's subsequent expansion say tons about where his heart really was. His subsequent kinship with Catholicos Karekin II of Cilicia says even more.

ARMENIANS KILLING ARMENIANS
The AASO groomed rage methodically. Angry Armenians desecrated churches, stole relics (the missing Right Arm of St. Gregory was found under the bed of a Ramgavar chieftain), and said terrible things about the new catholicos. Some tried to start a new diocese in Lebanon and Syria under Etchmiadzin. The Lebanese government forbade that, and the "diocese" in Damascus never took off. They were funded by wealthy players of the AASO. There are still Armenian churches in the Middle East that do not have any hierarchical leadership. They are called "Ramgavar Churches," and they service the "Separated Brethren" of the region.

Under the cover of a civil war in Lebanon in 1958, AASO and ARF tried to settle old scores, weapons in hand. One hundred people died.

THE CATHOLICATE OF CILICIA EXPANDS HER HORIZON
The Catholicate of Cilicia expanded her Mission of Faith, making her services available wherever Etchmiadzin was absent or her dioceses dysfunctional.

In 1958, Antelias took the orphaned prelacy in America under her wing and appointed a prelate. Many Armenian Americans had long complained that they were denied church services by Diocesan structures any time they were suspected to be pro-ARF. Then Antelias assumed leadership over three Iranian dioceses. The large and very important Iranian-Armenian community was without hierarchical leadership for more than ten years.

Finally, Antelias created a second diocese in Greece, because the AASO-controlled Etchmiadzin diocese was excluding pro-ARF types.

Wherever the Catholicate of Cilicia went, she established functional, active churches, and Armenian life blossomed. Overall, one third to one half of the Diaspora supported her undertakings. The other one half to two thirds objected. They believed Antelias betrayed "downtrodden Etchmiadzin" and "stole her churches."

Cilicia became an arena for ARF-type political activism. Even today, she is for the ARF what the Diocese of America is to the AASO, and what Etchmiadzin is to Armenian governments. She is one of the cylinders of the engine of disunity, and she is in good company.

Next week: The Nersoyan Doctrine

Munster, IN