This is more than the story of one landmarked church in Singapore; it is a story of hidden histories and changing destinies as Singapore grew from a small European colony at the edge of Asia to the country it is today.
St Gregory Armenian Apostolic Church is the oldest Christian church in Singapore, founded barely fifteen years after Sir Stamford Raffles began the colony as a trading outpost in 1819. By 1821, there were a dozen Armenian families among the merchants and traders, and they set up worship in a small chapel behind a store.
As their numbers and influence grew, they bought land and in 1835, with help from Armenian merchants in Java and Calcutta, they built the church, dedicated to the patron saint and first Patriarch of the Armenian Church, St Gregory the Illuminator. The building was designed by Irish architect George Coleman who designed many of Singapore's early European buildings.
While the Armenian community in Singapore has shrunk—since the 1930s, with not enough members to maintain a priest and regular services—Armenian families once played a significant role in the colony. Armenian brothers built and ran the Raffles Hotel; another Armenian founded the Straits Times, still the area's biggest newspaper and another bred the orchid that is Singapore's national flower.
Today, a single Armenian priest serves the pastorates of Singapore, Myanmar and Bangladesh, holding services five or six times a year in St Gregory. It's also used by Singapore's Coptic Orthodox community and a few others, and has support from Singapore's government for restoration and maintenance; it's a listed landmark.
The Memorial Garden around the church isn't actually a cemetery, despite appearances: the tombstones were brought to the site in the 1970s when the former Bukit Timah cemetery, which had been cleared and redeveloped.
In addition to the relocated gravestones, there is a memorial commemorating the 1915 genocide against Armenians, and a variety of more modern religious sculptures.
Among the more unusual items is a group of sculptures installed in 2005, the work of Teguh Ostenrik, an Indonesian sculptor whose works were part of an exhibit in Singapore that year. The group represents episodes connected with the Stations of the Cross.
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