Gold that Cracks Through the Dark
a eulogy for John Aroutiounian
Many of our readers know of John Aroutiounian, an incredible person who died in May 2019 at the age of 26. John’s writing was compiled into a book entitled Finding Gold in the Dark. I read this speech at the book launch event a few months ago.
Though I only got to know John during the last two years of his life, I can count him among the people who have had the most profound impact on me. This is in part because the friendship with him has extended beyond his short time on earth: thanks to his writings and his generous intercession for me, he continues to accompany me and help me grow on so many levels.
I first met John through a mutual friend after their return from the 2017 Scala Foundation conference in England. Our friend Rose told me I just had to meet John, with whom I’d have so much to talk about. And Rose was right–to an extent. During that dinner I found out that John and I are both Armenian (though he is about 87.5% more so than me), we both converted to Catholicism from Orthodoxy, and had a passion for studying philosophy, art, and foreign languages. He name dropped books and authors that played a big role in my own journey, like Brideshead Revisited and Augusto Del Noce.
But despite these points of commonality, it immediately became apparent to me that John and I were also rather different. I was in awe of his fearlessly bold forthrightness. Though I had just met him, he held none of his personality back. A painful introvert around people I don’t know, I always find myself startled by, and perhaps a bit envious of, people like John who are confident enough to unleash their full personalities in front of strangers.
As my friendship with John developed, I continuously found myself perplexed by our paradoxical combination of similarities and differences. John grew up in Manhattan with his loving, hard-working immigrant parents. I grew up in the suburbs of New Jersey with a big, loving, but also somewhat dysfunctional family dynamic. John, since his childhood, was driven and diligent, taking on the Armenian work ethic of his parents. Whereas my small amount of Armenian DNA was overpowered by my inner Greek islander, with my artsy, decadent free spirit—a descriptor I sometimes use as a euphemism for laziness. That being said, I was always amazed by John’s joie de vivre. His packed schedule never kept him from making time to enjoy beautiful things with the people he loved, and certainly never put a damper on his witty sense of humor. Though many who are as industrious as John can be accused of being sticks in the mud, no one could slap such a label onto him.
John and I were both raised as Christians, more so in culture than in practice, and were smitten with a desire to delve deeper into the faith we were raised with–to live it more intentionally and to understand God’s relevance to everyday life. Yet John’s way to divine things was perhaps more cataphatic compared to my apophatic proclivities. Our respective spiritualities bled over into our philosophical and political tendencies. John, despite his measured cautiousness, was more optimistic about human nature and was trusting of the Enlightenment and the so-called American Experiment. I, on the other hand, am a skeptic, a pessimist–I’m thoroughly postmodern, or what some would call decadent or irony-pilled. He took his cues from thinkers like David Brooks, Aquinas, and John Paul II, and I take mine from John Milbank, Oscar Wilde, and Camille Paglia.
I, like John, converted to Roman Catholicism from Orthodoxy. But what I admired about John was that his conversion didn’t consist of a turning away from his roots, but of a desire to deepen and expand them. He maintained a deep reverence for and involvement with the Armenian Apostolic Church, which inspired me to continue exploring my Byzantine roots and to stay close to the Greek Orthodox Church. John lived his life not as an either/or, but as a both/and.
He also applied this logic to his cultural background. Though proud of and fully invested in being American, he was determined to learn about and celebrate his Armenian heritage. From doing graduate work in Classical Armenian Studies at Oxford and spending extensive periods of time with his family in Armenia, to bringing awareness to the Armenian Genocide and Turkey’s continued oppression of the Armenian people, John’s esteem for his own roots didn’t hinder, but rather expanded his capacity to appreciate the many cultures of the world. John taught me that it’s precisely through firmly planting our roots in the particular that we are able to fully engage with the universal.
This became blatantly clear to me on the day of his funeral. The presence of the Armenian Apostolic clergy on the altar of St. Patrick’s Cathedral was a testament to John’s desire for unity among Christians…and the diverse group of people in attendance testified to his desire for unity among all people. Perhaps the most poignant moment of the funeral came toward the end, as the procession with his casket was led by the multi-denominational clergy. As the cathedral doors were swung open, you could see the pointed top of the Armenian bishop’s mitre and the crucifix held by a Roman Catholic priest heading out toward Fifth Avenue, juxtaposed against the statue of Atlas carrying the world on his shoulders in front of 45 Rockefeller Plaza.
Originally, John D. Rockefeller placed the Atlas statue across from the Cathedral to make a statement about the true nature of progress. Humanity will advance not from relying on backwards superstitions and rigid dogmas, but from placing its faith in man’s own strength. Despite its secular commitments, the modern humanist project can’t claim total independence from Christianity. Its valorization of human rights, equality, and unity was appropriated from a Christian anthropology. Yet this powerful sight at the end of John’s funeral was a reminder that such ideals are only achieved through communion with God, the origin and destiny of all of creation.
After his funeral, I felt a burning desire to understand John’s life–both on a personal and intellectual level. And for this, I turned to his numerous writings which can be found online–especially his collection of articles at the Yale Daily News, many of which appear in this collection. And what I find most fascinating about this book, namely in chapter two, is getting to see the juxtaposition of his earlier writings in high school with his later writings in college. One can see through this chapter how he matured over time, how his ideas took on greater precision and nuance–all the while maintaining his intense thirst for justice and to protect human dignity.
If I were one of John’s teachers in high school, I would’ve been immediately struck by how articulate and bold his writing was. This passion often had a sharp polemical edge, which John would learn to refine as he entered into college and engaged with a more diverse array of people. Though never softening his convictions, John came to understand that people often arrive at faulty ideological positions due to their experiences of suffering and injustice. Thus he learned to assume the best of opponents, and to argue his point in a way that respected the hints of truth in the opposing side, and above all with a deep respect for the humanity and the experiences of the persons with whom he was debating. John’s desire for truth and justice didn’t inhibit, but ignited his curiosity to understand the beliefs and experiences of people who thought differently from himself.
He also knew that such an attitude had pragmatic benefits–it’s hard to devise a compelling argument in a debate with someone whose views you don’t actually understand. One can easily recognize this in his way of engaging with the issue of abortion. In his reflection after attending the March for Life during his freshman year in college, he admits being struck by and coming to better understand the anger of the pro-abortion protestors he encountered there, which went on to shift the tone of his further writings on the issue.
John never allowed himself to be boxed in by simplistic ideological categories. Though some would label his deep moral convictions as conservative, that never stopped him from speaking out on social justice issues that would be conventionally labeled as progressive issues. He understood that in order to uphold moral and spiritual values, it was necessary to reform systemic injustices. Take his 2021 essay “The future is anything but ‘bright’,” in which he calls out the legacy of Jim Crow and imprudent housing policies for their impact on Black families. But his way of engaging with racial issues was hardly identitarian, as he believed the true “core” of every person’s identity is their intimate relationship with God…and that all have the freedom and responsibility to pursue Truth and Goodness. That being said, his esteem for free will and distrust of the welfare state didn’t stop him from advocating for a fairer distribution of resources on the part of the government.
His pieces in the Yale Daily News are as heartfelt as they are forthright, and reflect how John’s political consciousness developed in college. It becomes apparent that John came to understand that political change is impossible without personal change–without what Servant of God Dorothy Day would call a revolution of the heart, or what Pope Francis calls a revolution of tenderness. And indeed John wrote his op-eds for his Yale classmates with a deep tenderness for them. Though never afraid to call them out on their shortcomings or hypocrisy, he always did so with a deep desire for their happiness, and to see them pursuing academic and social ideals conducive to living more meaningful lives, and to loving and being loved by others.
He was quick to name the careerism that was masked as humanitarianism of Yale students who spent summers volunteering in developing countries, while neglecting their friends, family, and relationship with the Creator. He critiqued the cognitive dissonance of those who were skeptical about the American Dream and the so-called traditional American values that flowed out from it, but who also bought into the bourgeois, individualistic lifestyle, albeit with a veneer of progressivism, that is part and parcel of said “problematic” ideals.
A true humanitarian can only do good for his fellow human being, John reminds us, if he seriously pursues his own good, his own happiness, and takes seriously his relationship with the ultimate truth, with the Transcendent. Thus John’s emphasis in these articles on the virtue of being a good friend is not purely a moral issue. The fact of the matter is, people who foster meaningful, and committed friendships, even when it implies certain sacrifices, are happier.
But perhaps what was most compelling about John is that he was always looking for things that cracked through the hardened shell which our hearts are so often encased in as a result of our wounds, sins, or rigid ideological convictions. Whether it was seeing a professor buy food for a homeless friend, or seeing a picture of the pope embracing a severely disfigured man, John allowed himself to be pierced by moments like these that reminded him of the deep longing for salvation at the core of every person’s heart. And he was determined to share these moments with others. One could say John’s very life was one of these cracks, as he was a person whose presence cracked through and reminded people of the deep needs and yearnings that constituted their personhood. And this is what drew people of all different backgrounds and beliefs to him. Sure, he was intelligent, a good debater, and charming. But more importantly, he was a living example of St. Iranaeus’s claim that the glory of God is man fully alive.
What I found most alluring about John was that he was never content, he was always curious to know more, to discover more, to love more. He wasn’t satisfied with the supposed correctness or righteousness of his beliefs. John understood that our relationship with Truth is not static. It’s dynamic. Part of what strengthened John’s debate statements and articles was that for him, truth was not a purely intellectual or ideological matter. Rather, it was a matter of the heart. As Pope Benedict once said, “rather than ourselves possessing truth, it is truth which embraces and possesses us. Far from making us inflexible, the security of faith sets us on a journey; it enables witness and dialogue with all.” John understood that the Truth incarnated itself as Charity, and the infinite love of Christ pouring out from the Cross. John allowed himself to be filled with this love–this generative and creative love that transcends all limitations–even death itself, and allowed it to carry him to his ultimate destiny.
As the theologian and priest Luigi Giussani once said, a true friend is someone who accompanies you on your path toward your ultimate destiny. And thus, I consider John a true friend, as his witness on earth and intercession in heaven continue to lead me further along my path.
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