Milwaukee’s Armenian Church Celebrates Anniversary

By David Luhrssen

(Milwaukee, Wis.) On Sunday, November 7, St. John the Baptist Armenian Church celebrated its 79th anniversary with Divine Liturgy followed by a banquet and program. The Diocesan Vicar of the Eastern Diocese, Very Rev. Fr. Simeon Odabashian, was the guest celebrant. Assisting in the services was the parish’s current pastor, Rev. Fr. Guregh Hambardzumyan and his predecessor, Rev. Fr. Nareg Keutelian.

St. John was founded in 1942 in nearby West Allis, Wis., one of several industrial cities in the Midwest where Armenians found work and new lives after the massacres of the 1890s and the Armenian Genocide that followed.  In 1970 the parish moved to the Milwaukee suburb of Greenfield and conducted worship and other activities in a newly constructed cultural hall. In 1986 St. John’s sanctuary, designed by architect Harold Baylerian according to Armenian tradition, was consecrated by Archbishop Torkom Manoogian, assisted by the parish’s pastor, Rev. Fr. Tateos Abdalian.

At the November 7 program, Fr. Simeon recalled his long association with St. John, which began with a visit as a teenager in the 1970s. At that time, liturgy was conducted on the stage in the cultural hall by the late Very Rev. Fr. Shnork Kasparian. Fr. Simeon was present at the 1986 consecration and as a seminarian, assisted Fr. Tateos with Holy Week services.

The program’s keynote address by Fr. Guregh stressed the challenges that the founders of St. John had to overcome in “a place that bore no relation or resemblance to the land they came from.” The Armenian immigrants found work for themselves and bright prospects for their children but felt a void “that could only be filled by the construction of a new church.” In the decades since the parish was established, St. John has been “a safe haven and a gathering place” for Armenians, a place for spiritual and emotional regeneration, an extension of the Motherland, “a living breathing structure” where people worshiped, mourned, rejoiced and remembered who they were and from where they came, Fr. Guregh said.

In appreciation for his years of service at St. John as a deacon and later a priest, Fr. Nareg was presented with a clay khatchkar from Armenia. He recalled a conversation at the 1986 consecration with a skeptic who said in 25 years, there would be no Armenian community in the Milwaukee area. Thirty-five years later, St. John’s culture hall was crowded for the anniversary celebration and included many participants who weren’t born when the church was consecrated.