RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Armenia
prosecuted its purpose of enlightening the members of the Oriental Churches up to this time. Turkeybeing in turmoil at this time, the mission printingpress was established at Malta; explorations were made throughout Syria, Greece, Egypt, Asia Minor, and finally, in 1830-31, through a large part of Eastern Turkey besides the Caucasus and Persia. As a result, stations of the American Board were founded among the Armenians at Smyrna (1820), Constantinople (1831), Brousa, and Trebizond (1833). The printing plant for Armenian, Turkish, and Greek was removed from Malta to Smyrna in 1835 and there Bible work was pressed forward. A translation of the Bible into modern Armenian, by Elias Riggs, was published in 1852, and the translation of the Bible into Turkish written with Armenian letters by William Goodell was published in 1841 — the first translation of the Old Testament into this language. These two translations placed the Bible within reach of all the Armenians of the Turkish empire. In 1904 the circulation of the Scriptures among Armenians in Turkey amounted to nearly 30,000 copies.
The purpose of the American Board in entering the field of the Armenian Church was by no means hostile to it. Not the Armenians but the assurance of the Mohammedans that they had tested Christianity and found it wanting was the real objective. The first missionaries at Constantinople laid their plans before the Armenian patriarch, and during twelve years had his friendly approval, especially for their schools. A less liberal patriarch punished with severe persecution from 1845 to 1847 Armenians who had adopted the idea of individual study of the Bible. Finally the British Government interfered in behalf of religious liberty, solemnly proclaimed by the Sultan in the Hatti Sherif of 1839. All Armenians who chose to escape the pains of the ban by declaring themselves Protestants were protected by Turkish police against the rancor of the patriarch; and in 1852-54 the " Protestant Community " as it is officially called, or the " Evangelical Community " as it is called by its members, was formally recognized, with a layman as its representative before the throne, and with all the rights of a separate religious organization. Since then evangelical Greeks, Bulgarians, Syrians, Jews, etc., have been added to this body.
The American Board's missions among the Armenians have extended throughout Asiatic Turkey, to the Persian frontier on the east, and to the Arabic-speaking provinces of Syria and Mesopotamia on the south. The central stations number 13 and the outstations 241, with 161 missionaries (of whom 63 are unmarried women) and 956 native workers. The communicants in its congregations (1905) number 14,542, and the adherents 50,738. It should be noted, however, that separate statistics of the Armenians in these congregations are not kept. It is perhaps safe to estimate them at about seventy per cent of the whole number. Educational work is extensive and effective. There are 22,152 scholars of all grades and both sexes in the 529 primary and intermediate schools, the six colleges for men and women, and the four theological seminaries, which receive candidates for the min-
istry of the Old Armenian Church as well as those of the Evangelical body. Robert College at Constantinople, founded by Christopher Robert of New York with Cyrus Hamlin for its first president, is not included in these statistics. It is not connected with the mission, nor is it in any sense propagandist. Yet its liberal education of Armenians has tended to strengthen the position of the Evangelical Armenian body. A publishing house at Constantinople, removed from Smyrna in 1853, and with uninterrupted productiveness since it was founded in Malta in 1822, issues school books, religious books, hymnals, commentaries, and other helps to the study of the Bible, besides a family newspaper that appears in an Armenian and a Turkish edition.
A small number of Armenians have joined the evangelical movement through the mission of the (American) Disciples of Christ. Many, whose statistics are not separately kept, have connected themselves with the American Presbyterian missions in Persia. Reckoning all these together, and adding to them the evangelical Armenians in the Russian Caucasus and in the territory taken from Turkey in the war of 1877-78, the total number of Evangelical Armenians may be estimated in these countries at about 80,000.
Henry Otis Dwight.
Armenian immigration to the United States practically commenced in 1895 after the massacres of that time. A few had come earlier for education, business, or manufacturing, and there were small communities in a few of the larger cities. After that the number increased rapidly. The census of 1900 makes no distinction of races from Turkey, though the later immigration reports do. It thus follows that exact figures are scarcely obtainable. The best estimates place the total (1906) at not far from 30,000, of whom from 7,500 to 10,000 may be considered as Protestants or Evangelicals, the remainder belonging to the Gregorian 9. Armeni- or Orthodox Church. The largest
ans in single community, practically a colony, America. is at Fresno, Cal., where at least 4,000 are located. The other centers are New York City (3,500-4,000), Boston (2,500), Worcester, Mass. (1,200), Providence. R. I. Q,200), and Philadelphia (500). In the immediate suburbs of Boston and the manufacturing towns of Eastern Massachusetts and New Hampshire, in Hartford, and in New Jersey there are a number of communities of varying size and changing from year to year.
The Protestant Armenians have organized churches in New York City, Troy, N. Y., Worcester, Mass., Providence, R. I., and Fresno, Cal., besides a number of missions, or places where services, more or less regular, are held. The great majority are connected with the Congregational denomination, but there are Presbyterians. The Gregorians have an archbishop at Worcester, and vartabeds or priests at New York, Worcester, Providence, Boston, and Fresno. These visit other places in their vicinity to perform rites or ceremonies that may be desired. They have church buildings at Worcester and Fresno. The attendance upon
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