CASE OF THE CHOLAKIAN FAMILY: A New Phase in the History of the Struggle for Religious Freedom in America

By Rev. Charles A. Vertanes

Reprinted from Armenian Affairs, quarterly journal on Armenian studies published by the Armenian National Council of America, Volume 1, Winter 1949-1950, this booklet presents the struggle for religious liberty by Hampartzoom Cholakian and his efforts to regain custody of his three children, detained by two Roman Catholic Institutions in New York. While the legal suits incited by these institutions were pending, the children were systematically indoctrinated in the faith of the Catholic Church, against the expressed wishes of their father, who was not a Roman Catholic. This is a case in which the paramount natural right of the parent to his children was flouted by the same Church which maintained the doctrine of parental rights to justify the establishment of the parochial school system in America.

National Committee for the Rights of the Cholakian Family (1950)