This paper explores how the Armenian Church in Lebanon expanded its power to incorporate Armenian communities outside of the Middle East. While often considered a self-contained and marginal community, Armenians in Lebanon used sectarianism to increase their power in membership and financial revenue in Lebanon and beyond. In 1933, an Armenian priest was murdered in an Armenian Church in Washington Heights, NYC. The repercussions of the murder extended far beyond the boundary of Police District 11 to involve the authority of the Armenian Church located in Antelias, Lebanon and its major rival, the Armenian Church of Soviet Armenia. This paper will analyze the expansion of the authority of the Armenian Church in Lebanon as it engineered-- through a murder in Washington Heights-- to redraw the boundaries of its power vis-à-vis its main rival, the Armenian Church of Soviet Armenia. This extension of power and the Armenian Church in Lebanon’s foray into the Armenian-American landscape raises larger questions of the permeation of borders and reveals the continued power of a Lebanese Armenian sectarian institution into the everyday lives of Armenians far outside the Middle East. Because the accused were members and sympathizers of the Dashnak political party, all those affiliated with the party were banned from Armenian churches throughout the United States and were prevented from attending and participating in mass, weddings, baptisms, and burials. In response, in 1957, the excommunicated encouraged the Armenian Church in Lebanon to intervene, and it in turn established its own churches in America, beside existing ones. The Armenian Church of Lebanon’s unprecedented involvement created relationships that had not previously existed, and bonded thousands of Armenians in America with a sectarian institution in Lebanon, which, in turn, claimed spiritual and ideological authority over them. The extension of the Armenian sectarian institution’s power in Lebanon allowed for Armenian churches in America to become political rivals. Their ability to vie with one another for the legitimacy to represent the entirety of the Armenian community in the United States demonstrated how sectarianism could travel and be used for political and financial gain far outside of Lebanon.