Life without the Church cannot be the same. I speak with all honesty and wish wholeheartedly that all people had the same inner spiritual ingredient in themselves. The Church has been part of my life and I could not have imagined living without its continual presence. It is true that the Church has been an inseparable part of my life since childhood. As an adult and then as a priest, I have appreciated the immense impact the Church has left on me. And I sincerely believe that people who have distanced themselves from the Church are surely lacking something precious. These are people who most of the time are goodhearted and yet one can tell that God is not speaking to us through their hearts. God is with them and in them obviously. And what the Church does to them is reminding them that God is the source of our lives.

Therefore, let the Church be part of your life. We are not choosing the Church because of the priest, who has been supportive to us, helping and teaching us to pray. We need to be part of the Church and make the need to be part of our life, so that we may exercise God’s will in the life of our friends.

Archbishop Hovnan Derderian

Primate