UTAH'S RICHARD APOSHIAN AND DR. NISHAN SHERANIAN TALK IN PARALLEL ABOUT GRANDPARENT'S JOURNEY IN FAITH

by Lisa Boghosian


Among the first Mormon missionaries to arrive in Turkey were Elders Ferdinand F. Hintze and James Clove, Sr. In 1887, they left their homes in Utah and traveled east toward Turkey, speaking only broken Turkish. There, Elder Clove made Constantinople the center of his mission, while Elder Hintze was inspired to continue his travels north and east as far as he could until he reached the small province in Turkey known as Sivas.

It is here that the story of Armenian Mormons in Utah begins. From village to village Hintze traveled, baptizing new converts to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (LDS). And when there were no more to baptize, he continued on to meet relatives in nearby towns like Zara and Aintab. Often recent converts traveled with him on his mission, proselytizing Armenians as well.

Between six to ten different families became Mormon in Turkey because of Hintze and his new converts. Eventually, they even established a branch of the LDS Church in Zara. However, church leaders felt it wasn't safe for the Armenian Mormons to live there anymore, so they helped pay their way to Utah, where they would be safer. Among the descendants of those early Armenian converts still living in the area today are the Sheranians and the Aposhians.

Dr. Nishan Sheranian is a prominent retired endodontist living in Salt Lake City. He is also the grandson of Nishan and Rebecca Sherinian of Zara. Dr. Sheranian tells the story. "At the time when Hintze arrived in Zara," says Dr. Sheranian, "my grandfather was minister of the Disciples of Christ Church. Though he had been born into the Armenian Church 24 years earlier, he switched faiths after Protestant missionaries came to Zara and converted him. In the beginning, he preached to his congregation not to listen to Hintze. But to be sure, he went to hear Hintze for himself. And after tough questioning he became convinced that what Hintze was preaching was the truth.

"So my grandfather became a Mormon. And from then on went with Hintze on many of his travels. However, once he declared his faith, he immediately was persecuted against. When his stepmother heard the news that he had become a Mormon, she became enraged and turned on him- as did many people in his village, and his former congregation. Definitely there was persecution- but the converts kept together."

However by 1902 any feelings of discrimination were left behind as the group of converts moved to Utah. Among them were Nishan and Rebecca Sherinian, and their three children Arick, Herond, and Krikor. "Before the massacres," explains Dr. Sheranian, "my grandfather prophetized that if they didn't leave Zara, they'd all be massacred. Many people laughed at him. But my grandfather knew that the Turks had tried three different times to take over Zara, but were turned away. He knew that if they didn't leave then, they'd never leave. So he, and about 14 others left Zara and moved to Utah where they could be close to the Church and to Hintze."

"When my grandfather and his family arrived in Salt Lake," explains Dr. Sheranian, "they stayed in the LDS tithing house. There were no hotels in Utah at the time, and the next best thing was the three-story building where the church stored many of the farm products paid to them through tithing. After a few days, Hintze came and got them, and took them to a house in Holliday, just across from where his third wife lived."

For a while Nishan worked as an ice-cutter, but then changed jobs and worked for Hintze at his mine. There he was promised to be paid, but was provided with food from his farm and given stock in his mine instead. But he still had expenses to pay and had no income. So Hintze convinced him to sell the rugs they brought from Zara. He did, and later found that the stock he'd been given had no value. Nishan was now left with nothing. So he left Holliday, and moved to Murray, where he worked in a Murray smelter. Later he opened a barber shop, so he could help Dr. Sheranian's father, Herond, go to school. "He learned to be a barber in Istanbul," says Dr. Sheranian.

Richard Aposhian's family was converted to the LDS Church in the town of Aintab. Like the Sheranians, the Aposhians were first members of the Armenian Church, but converted after they met Hintze. "The biggest reason my grandparents converted," says Mr. Aposhian, "is because of the Book of Mormons. My grandfather, Zadik Moses Aposhian, started reading it and couldn't stop. After he had finished the entire book, he turned to my grandmother and said, 'This is the church and way of life for us.'"

Zadik and his wife were baptized into the LDS Church in 1905. But after that, life in Aintab was not the same. Before, they were successful rug merchants. But once the town got wind that they had become Mormons, their business began to drop. And since they couldn't sell their business either they decided to leave and go to England, taking their rugs with them.

"My grandparents, along with three other families, the Kezerians, Orullians, and Ploudjians, left Aintab in 1908," says Mr. Aposhian. "And when they finally made it to England, they were physically examined before they could set sail for Canada. While most of the family ended up on the boat to Canada, somehow three of the children were put on a ship to Mexico instead. However when they arrived in Salt Lake the LDS Church helped them locate their children, who had been taken and made slaves in Mexico, and brought them to Utah."

And since then, the Aposhian family hasn't moved far from where they first settled in Salt Lake City. Just next door to where Zadik and his family of nine lived, Mr. Aposhian's father, George, opened up an auto-repair garage. Today that same garage is run by Richard Aposhian, with the help of his sons. About 100 feet away is his brother's structural engineering company.

Today, long after the journey of their grandparents to Utah, generation after generation of Armenian Hintze converts, like the Sheranians and Aposhians, practice the teachings of the LDS Church on a daily basis. "The church gives me the most marvelous peace of mind," says Dr. Sheranian. "It provides my wife Marilyn, four sons, two daughters, twenty-two grandchildren, and two great grandchildren, with a way of life. When we go to church we improve ourselves- we improve our social skills and learn about health and the gospel. We pattern our lives after our Savior, and do everything in moderation."

"I like to think that I am active in the church," says Mr. Aposhian. "My wife is active, and so are my children for the most part. No one has diverted from the church yet. Even if there was an Armenian church here, I don't think we'd feel any sense of loyalty to it. You can still be an Armenian and a Mormon at the same time."