MISSION OF THE ARMENIAN ORTHODOX CHURCH

ACCORDING TO THE TEACHING OF ST. GREGORY THE ILLUMINATOR

​To illumine all people who come into the world;

To give repentance of salvation to all;

To wash all people and deliver them from the bonds of darkness by baptism;

To seal all nations as Christ’s inner circle;

To make the Spirit of God dwell in people’s hearts;

To unite and join them to the love of the Son of God, that the heart of all might cry as one, and to unite all the world in saying: “Abba, Father,” so that the name of enslavement might be taken away, and the name of adoption be placed on them by the grace of Christ;[1]

To enable them to eat the flesh of the Son of God and drink the life-giving blood,[2] so that thereby they might bring all the world into the inheritance of Christ, to become “heirs of God and fellow heirs of Christ.”[3]

    [1]Romans 8:15, Galatians 4:6-7.           

    [2]John 6:54 

    [3]Romans 8:17.

    *Taken from The Teaching of Saint Gregory, ed. Robert W. Thomson, AVANT: Treasures of the Armenian Christian Tradition 1 (New Rochelle, NY: St. Nersess Armenian Seminary, 2001) 223-224.

MISSION STATEMENT OF OUR EASTERN DIOCESE

The mission of the Armenian Apostolic Orthodox Church is to preach the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ and to proclaim its message of salvation. This mission is realized through worship, education, witness, service, and the common life in Christ as expressed in the distinctive faith-experience of the Armenian people. All members of the Armenian Church—both clergy and lay—are called to participate fully in its mission.