The Evangelical Theological Seminary of ARMENIA held its first graduation service on November 29. The school was established by the Armenian Missionary Association of America and the Union of the Evangelical Churches in Armenia, which became the world’s first Christian state in A.D. 301. Among Armenia’s 3.4 million people, 79.1 percent are professing Christians. Evangelicals make up just.56 percent of the population, according to Operation World.
A government minister in SERBIA has promised to remove barriers to religious activity and ensure “full rights and freedoms” for all denominations. “For over 30 years, the attitude of the former godless authorities towards churches and religious communities was hypocritical—just window dressing for the public at home and abroad,” Gordana Anicic, the newly appointed Minister for Faiths in Serbia’s transitional government, told Ecumenical News International. Together with the smaller territory of Montenegro, Serbia forms part of the Yugoslav federation. Minority church leaders in Serbia have praised the new atmosphere in the country. The former regime gave preferential treatment in the state-controlled media to the predominant Orthodox Church, of which most of Yugoslavia’s population of 11 million people are nominal members. Dragisa Armus, the secretary of Yugoslavia’s small Union of Evangelical Christian Baptists, said it was too soon to assess the actions of the 16-member transitional government. “Our vision is to plant evangelical churches in all towns nationwide,” said Armus, whose Union has 25 pastors and 13 registered churches, mainly in southern Serbia and Montenegro.
The CHURCH OF ENGLAND may be able to raise an extra $7 million a year—a mere drop in the ocean compared to its annual operating costs of about $1 billion—by allowing mobile-phone companies to use the towers and steeples of its churches for aerial space. The companies that have gained licenses for the third generation of mobile phones, which will operate on a broader bandwidth to allow easier transmission of data, must have 87 percent of their coverage in place by the year 2007, and apparently 11,000 new aerial sites will be needed. About 50 to 70 churches are already allowing their steeples to be used. Those churches that have welcomed aerials are receiving annual rents of $7,000 and more, a major aid to some church budgets.
