On Sunday, November 10, 2013, the parish priest of St. Vartan Armenian Church of Mississauga Rev. Fr. Myron Sarkissian and yeretzgin Narine, attended the first screening of “The Orphans of the Genocide” documentary that was organized by the Pomegranate Film Festival at Hamazkayin theatre in Toronto.
The Emmy-award winning documentary commemorates the memory of the orphans of the Armenian Genocide. The film took inspiration from an article by Robert Fisk about the discovery of the Armenian orphanage in Antoura, near Beirut, Lebanon. The orphanage was intended to “turkify” the orphans, based on the agenda of Ahmad Jamal Pasha. The director of the documentary Mr. Bared Maronian also provides a window into the lives of Canada’s Georgetown Boys.
Rev. Fr. Myron has contributed to the preparation of this documentary, providing important archival photos on the story of the Arba Lijoch children coming to Ethiopia after the Armenian Genocide. “Arba Lijoch” was a group of 40 Armenian orphans who had escaped from the atrocities in Turkey, and were afterwards adopted by Haile Selassie I of Ethiopia, then Crown Prince Ras Tafari. He had met them while visiting the Armenian monastery in Jerusalem. They impressed him so much that he obtained permission from the Armenian Patriarchate of Jerusalem to adopt and bring them to Ethiopia, where he then arranged for them to receive musical instruction. The Arba Lijoch arrived in Addis Ababa in 1924, and along with their bandleader Kevork Nalbandian became the first official orchestra of the nation.
Before the screening Fr. Myron met the director Mr. Bared Maronian and H.E. Ambassador Armen Yeganian, and discussed the upcoming screening projects in several cities in Canada. Following the screening Mr. Maronian announced that the upcoming screening in Ontario will be organize by St. Vartan Armenian Church of Mississauga in February 2014, and thanked Fr. Myron for his support.
