Armenian Research Center's Conference: "Churches, States, and Politics in the Armenian Diaspora"
Armenian Research Center at the University of Michigan–Dearborn Announces Speakers for Forthcoming Conference
“Churches, States, and Politics in the Armenian Diaspora”
Dates: April 9–11, 2027
The Armenian Research Center at the University of Michigan–Dearborn will host a multidisciplinary academic conference, “Churches, States, and Politics in the Armenian Diaspora,” on its campus from April 9–11, 2027.
Scholars from Argentina, Armenia, France, Greece, Hungary, Poland, the United Kingdom, and the United States will present eighteen papers focusing on the relations which the Armenian Apostolic, Catholic, and Evangelical churches have maintained with their respective governments in diasporic communities, as well as the involvement of Armenian clergy and church bodies in international politics and intra-Armenian political rivalries outside the territory of the Republic of Armenia in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.
Conference Participants and Presentations:
Anna Adamyan
Yerevan State University
“The Armenian Church in Contemporary China: Challenges and Possibilities for an Institutional Presence”
Sako Arian
Arevelk.am, Yerevan
“Archbishop Kevork Arslanyan’s Second Term as Locum Tenens and the Relations of the Armenian Patriarchate of Istanbul with Turkish State Authorities, 1944–1950”
Nélida Boulgourdjian
Universidad Nacional de Tres de Febrero, Buenos Aires
“The Three Armenian Churches in Argentina: Regulatory Framework, State, and Institutional Adaptation”
Felix Corley
Independent scholar, United Kingdom
“Diaspora Armenian Clerics and the KGB”
Mkhitar Gabrielyan and Ruzanna Tsaturyan
Yerevan State University
“The Survival and Adaptation of the Armenian Church in Georgia Under Soviet Repressions: The Case of Akhaltskha”
Arsen Hakobyan
Institute of Archaeology and Ethnography, Yerevan
“The Armenian Apostolic Church in Post-Soviet Krasnodar: Diasporization and Community Institutionalization”
Jiraïr Jolakian
Nor Haratch Media, Paris
“The Formation of an Eastern Traditional Community within a European Secular Legal State: The Armenian Apostolic Church in France”
Arman Khachatryan
Institute of Archaeology and Ethnography & Armenian Genocide Museum-Institute, Yerevan
“Church, Community, and Colonial Authority: The Armenian Patriarchate of Jerusalem under the British Mandate”
Bálint Kovács
PPCU, Budapest & GWZO, Leipzig
“From a Bishopric Campaign to Post-Imperial Institutions: Armenian Catholic Church Politics in Transylvania and Budapest, c. 1900–1950”
Lilit Melikyan
Yerevan State University
“The Armenian Catholic Community and the Catholic Church in Georgia in the 20th Century: Formation, Transformations, and the Preservation of Identity”
Haykuhi Muradyan and Hamazasp Abrahamyan
Yerevan State University; Institute of Archaeology and Ethnography
“The Armenian Apostolic Church in Jordan since 1967: Church–State Relations, Historical Ruptures, and Contemporary Realities”
Sona Nersisyan
Institute of Archaeology and Ethnography, Yerevan
“Beyond the State-Centric Triad: Echmiadzin as an Autonomous Sacred Center in Armenian Diasporic Governance: The Case of Kraków”
Levon-Leonidas Ntilsizian
Panteion University, Athens
“Cold War, State Policy, and the Conflict within the Armenian Apostolic Church in Greece, 1950s–1960s”
Konrad Siekierski
University of Łódź
“Contested Presence, Infrastructural Invisibility: The Armenian Apostolic Church in Post-Soviet Georgia”
Vahe Sahakyan
University of Michigan–Dearborn
“Transnational Politics and the Schism in the Armenian Church in the United States, 1920s–1930s”
Ara Sanjian
University of Michigan–Dearborn
“The 1956 Catholicosal Election in Antelias, Lebanon, in Geopolitical Context”
Christopher Sheklian
Mississippi State University
“Corporate Status and the Body of Christ: Ecclesial Conceptions of the Church and Legal Status in Diaspora”
Lusine Tanajyan
Institute of Archaeology and Ethnography, Yerevan
“The Armenian Church between Religious Recognition and Community Governance in Cyprus”
