Armenians from across Asia and beyond thronged to the historic Armenian Apostolic Church of Saint John the Baptist for the Mass on Saturday, 4th  October.

Among the congregation in the brick church at the leafy corner of Merchant and Bo Aung Kyaw streets were fewer than 20 members of Yangon’s small Armenian community.

As the congregation stood for a prayer delivered by His Holiness Karekin II, volunteers passed straw fans along the pews to the worshippers, their backs flecked with sweat in heat and humidity barely disturbed by the ceiling fans.

The presence of His Holiness was the second honour within days for the church, built in 1862 by members of a once-thriving Armenian community, the members of which included the Minus clan, which has strong roots in Yangon but is spread throughout the worldwide Armenian diaspora.

On 1st October, a plaque was laid next to the steel gates of the church recording its designation as a heritage building by the Yangon heritage trust.

Raising the church to heritage status was a collective effort spearheaded by three women from the Minus clan, with support from the Armenian church in Singapore.

Christine Young, 69, formerly Christine Minus, beamed as His Holiness Karekin II blessed her beloved church. Her parents, whose ancestors came to Myanmar from an Armenian community established in Iran in the 17th century, were born and educated in Yangon.

The young couple fled to Calcutta after the Japanese invasion in december 1941, but returned in 1945 with a Young Christine. Now a resident of Los Angeles, Ms Christine Minus had arrived in Yangon that morning for the re-consecration service.

“My father always said, if you throw a stone in Rangoon [Yangon], you hit a Minus,” she told me over refreshments in the church garden after the service.

Ms Christine Minus has fond memories of the church when a large and vibrant Armenian community made it a focus of their lives and faith. She recounted her father’s stories of having deviously lit fire crackers amid the ringing bells of the church at prayer time.

“That would drive the old ladies crazy,” she said, laughing.

Ms Rachel Minus, 34, Christine’s third cousin once removed, a Yangon resident and one quarter Armenian, laments her dwindling Armenian community.

“After I was born the community became smaller and smaller, so there was no Armenian bishops coming to perform services,” Ms Rachel Minus said, standing beside Ms Christine Minus, and watching the normally quiet church bustle with visitors eager to trace their family ties and connections to the Armenian community.

It was Ms Rachel Minus and her relative Ms Sharman Minus, who in late 2012 alerted a trustee of the Armenian Church of Saint Gregory in Singapore, Mr Pierre Hennes, to the dire situation of the Yangon church.

Maintenance had been neglected, services had been led by a priest untrained in the Armenian Christian tradition and its choice location had attracted the interest of property developers, said Ms Sharman Minus, 61, a third cousin to Ms Christine Minus and third cousin once removed to Ms Rachel Minus.

A legacy of the Armenian trading families, who were once prominent throughout Southeast Asia, are the churches they built throughout the region from the 17th to the 18th centuries, said Mr Hennes.

But tragedies of the 20th century – the Armenian genocide, the First and Second World Wars – saw many Armenian communities in Asia go into decline. Most members of the community in Myanmar fled during World War II or were forced to leave by successive regimes after independence.

Since 2000 there has been a resurgence in the Armenian communities in India, China and Singapore, said Mr Hennes.

He was among His Holiness Karekin II’s entourage of Armenian businesspeople from throughout Asia, who are dedicated to bolstering historic Armenian communities, beginning with their churches.

“All of these communities used to have Armenian streets, culture, churches; now we see the platform and the foundation that were laid several hundred years ago as a means of embracing a new community [of Armenians],” said Mr Henri Arslanian, a Hong Kong-based director for an international financial services firm, explained during a meeting with His Holiness.

“Now that Myanmar is opening up, we hope more and more Armenians will come,” added Mr Hennes.

Ms Sharman Minus feels the community’s foundation in Yangon comes from the “enmeshment” of Armenians with their destinations, a trait, she said, which distinguished them from the British in Myanmar.

“Armenians are known for travelling all over the world, but they made a point of wherever they settled to adapt to the local community and learn the language; they were not political, they did not want to fight – they just wanted to trade,” said Ms Sharman Minus, whose Armenian father was born in Myanmar.

Aprime example was Hosannah Manook. She was descended from a ‘Mr Manook’, who was one of the first Armenian traders to settle in Yangon. His home, a few blocks east of the Strand Hotel, is shown on an official map drawn by a British mission in 1850.

Ms Hosannah Manook’s father was an advisor to king Mindon Min and his son King Thibaw Min in Mandalay during the third Burmese war in the 1880s, said Ms Sharman Minus.

“When that war was fought – I mean the British barely fired a shot and Thibaw capitulated – it was complete lawlessness on the streets and they had to escape, but Hosannah was a lady in waiting to King Thibaw’s wife, Queen Supayalat,” she said.

Ms Sharman Minus said she was told by the father of Ms Christine Minus, Noel Minus, 92, that Hosannah and her family sought refuge in Myanmar’s mountainous jungles until it was safe to return to the cities.

Ms Christine Minus said her father also recalled Hosannah Manook and her entourage turning up at their home on 48 University Avenue, next to the residence of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, “when the first Japanese bombs dropped on Yangon.”

Hosannah married Merches Manook – who was probably her cousin – whose sister was Elisabeth “Lizzy” Manook.

Hosannah, who was also known as Daw Khin Mya and spoke fluent Burmese, Armenian and English, died in 1943 during the Japanese occupation.

Lizzy Manook became Lizzy Minus, one of the major benefactors of the church. She is Sharman and Christine’s great-grandmother and Rachel’s great-great-grandmother.

The contribution of Elisabeth Simon Minus is commemorated on a plaque near the breezy entrance to the church.

The restoration of the church, with its high ceilings to combat heat, is nearly complete. It has been painted a soft cream colour with dark accents. A wooden lacy Burmese-style ornamental fringe decorates the eaves of the tin roof and simple flowering plants bloom in the church garden.

“It’s a colonial, Burmese, English, gothic, country church – a bit of everything,” said Ms Sharman Minus, who visited Yangon and the church for the first time in 2013. “Its history goes further back to the first [Armenian] wooden church built in the 1760s around the corner.”

Ms Sharman Minus, an historian in her own right who lives in Victoria, British Columbia, has hit a dead end in her endeavour to trace her family’s history in Myanmar.

“I can only go back to this one Mackertich Minus, born in 1809 in Isfahan and the Customs collector of Pegu [Bago]; the trail is dead, it’s so irritating,” she said, smiling but determined to continue her search.

Congregation rejoices as a church’s revival looms

Members of Yangon’s small Armenian community rejoiced when His Holiness Karekin II, Supreme Patriarch and Catholicos of all Armenians, announced that he would be sending a priest from the Armenian college in Kolkata to lead the weekly church service in Yangon.

The announcement will breathe new life into the sleepy Armenian Apostolic Church of Saint John the Baptist, at the corner of Merchant and Bo Aung Kyaw streets. For the past three years, services have been led by Mr John Felix.

Ms Sharman Minus, whose great grandmother was among the founding benefactors of the church, said Mr Felix had been an Anglican deacon in Thailand before he returned to his native Myanmar more than three years ago.

He succeeded his father, an Anglican priest who was minister at the Armenian Apostolic Church of Saint John the Baptist in Yangon for more than 30 years.

“John Felix is not an Armenian priest, so because he is not Armenian, he hasn’t got the training and can’t do the service according to the Armenian church traditions and dogma,” His Holiness Karekin II told a small news briefing at a Yangon hotel.

“But whatever service he has done for the preserving of the church, we appreciate that,” His Holiness said.

In late 2013, amid concern over unwanted interest by property developers in acquiring the church property, a lifelong member of the congregation, Ms Rachel Minus, sought the support of Ms Sharman Minus, her third cousin once removed, and Mr Pierre Hennes, a trustee of the Armenian Church of Saint Gregory in Singapore, to ensure a secure future for the historic building.

The Mass to re-consecrate the church on October 4 led by His Holiness Karekin II and Bishop Haigazoun Najarian of the Armenian Church of Australia and New Zealand, included a symbolic cleansing of the altar.

After the mass, His Holiness led a meeting of members of the Armenian community in Yangon to make arrangements for the running and management of the church.

“My visit here, brings happiness to the few Armenians here and it makes me just as happy,” His Holiness said.