Dr. Zaven Messerlian: "I fought the good fight, I finished the course"

The translation of the farewell speech from principalship, Dr. Zaven Messerlian delivered during the jubilee of his five-decades-long service as the Principal of the Armenian Evangelical College (AEC) in Beirut, Lebanon.  The event took place on May 27, 2017, under the auspices of the Union of the Armenian Evangelical Churches in the Near East (UAECNE). He continues to retain his ties with the school at its honorary principal and maintains an office with a workload of 12 periods per week, of which 4 are for teaching.

"I fought the good fight, I finished the course"

Dr. Zaven Messerlian

Translated by Vahe H. Apelian

" My life is associated with the Armenian Evangelical College from 1950 to 2017. In October 1950, I was accepted as a 7th-grade student in the old "high school" building. In those days, three students sat at one desk. I graduated in June 1955. Next year, 1956, I was elected as a committee member of the school's alumni association. I served for the next eleven consecutive years.

My ties with the school did not end there because in October 1960 I was accepted as a full-time teacher. It could very well not have happened that way. Let me explain why. I had applied for a teaching post for the scholastic year beginning October 1959 but on July I had received a letter of rejection because there were no teaching vacancies but later, just before the start of the scholastic year, a vacancy had opened. The principal had sent word to me through an alumni committee member, who informed me two weeks after the beginning of the scholastic year when it was way too late.  

I devoted that whole year to my M.A. studies and did not work elsewhere. I started teaching at the Armenian Evangelical College the following year. They say that the years pass fast. That is an illusion. The years have their unfolding but I remember my first day of teaching as if it was yesterday. I arrived at the school in the morning and saw a mustachioed and a well-built young man in the schoolyard. I said to myself, "he seems to be a teacher, I will meet him later on in the teacher's room". Even on the first day of school, there was an absent teacher.  The principal, Pastor Jezmejian, sent me to supervise the teacher's class.  I was greatly surprised to see the same person, whom I thought as a teacher, sitting in at the first-row desk of Grade 10.

When in October 1961, Mr. Hagop Kasparian became the principal of the school, he appointed me as the chairperson of the disciplinary committee and from October 1965 to June 1967, the responsibility for the secondary section of the school.

After Mr. Kasparian's departure to the United States, the Board of the Trustees appointed me on, July 17, 1967, as the principal of the school when some of the teachers were my own teachers during my years as a student. Their decision was a surprise to me. I had not envisioned it. 

I carried on the responsibility for the past fifty years, to this day. I saw the school at its pre-civil war heydays when its enrollment was up to 796 students. I experienced the mayhem of the civil war during the 1975-1976 scholastic year when the school remained open and functioning for three weeks only. During that dangerous year, I was at my desk and mostly by myself for the 200 of the year's 292 school days. I saw the precipitous decline of the school's enrollment because of the worsening civil war.  I experienced many dangerous days but also the continuation of the school and the achievement of its students in spite of limited enrollment. I experienced the steady march of its former students armed with the Christian and Armenian education they received. I felt immense satisfaction when Raffi Manougian, Hrach Seserian, Vahan Zanoyan, Hoving Kurkjian, who were my students during my years as a teacher or principal, assist the school during its lean fiscal years with their generous sizeable donations. Along with them are hundreds of the school's graduates and former students, whose names would take a long time to note here, who also stood by the school.

Not the opposition by a few during my early years, nor the dangers of the Lebanese Civil War, not even the lucrative administrative or academic offers I received from overseas veered me from my commitment to the Armenian Evangelical College and from the vow I took in 1970 at the tomb of the Saint Mesrob Mashdotz in Oshagan, Armenia to remain faithful educating successive upcoming young Armenian generations.

I am glad to say that I kept my vow. The Armenian Evangelical College became my family. I enjoyed the respect and love of all those who are affiliated with the school. I am glad to note I handed 755 diplomas to secondary school graduates (not counting those of 2016-2017) and more than a thousand to kindergarten and elementary school graduates.  I am proud of my former and present students as a father would of his children.

I am grateful to the Almighty Father in heaven for lavishly bestowing upon me the good I have enjoyed. I am thankful to my late parents, Megerdich and Satenig Messerlians and elder brother Tavit who always encouraged me in my endeavor. I am thankful for this evening and to my dear brother Haig, who has always stood by me, and who came from the United States to attend this event.  I am thankful to the pastor of the Armenian Evangelical First Chruch and his predecessors; to the members of the present and past Boards of Trustees; to the present vice-principals, the teachers, the parents, the ladies auxiliaries and last but not the least to my present and past students for their respect, trust and cooperation.

I also thank Rev. Megerdich Karagoezian, the President of the Union of the Armenian Evangelical Churches in the Near East for chairing today's jubilee; the committee members who organized this event; my former students Daron Der Khachadourian as the keynote speaker and to maestro Garo Avesian and all those who took part in today's program.

Although it is often quoted during jubilees such as this one, yet it would be impossible for me to end my address without quoting the following from the prince of the Armenian poetry Vahan Tekeyan:

“At long last, what is there left from life? What’s left to me?
Strange as it seems, only that, which I gave to others…”

Thank you all. "

Note: The quote from Vahan Tekeyan is from Tatul Sonents Papazian’s able translation of the poem. Vahe H. Apelian