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Turkey minister to attend divine liturgy at Holy Cross Armenian church

September 6, 2018 By administrator

Turkish culture and tourism minister Mehmet Nuri Ersoy will attend the divine liturgy at the Holy Cross Armenian church on Akhtamar Island in Lake Van, Turkey, on September 9.

The island is preparing to host the liturgy after a three-year break, Turkiyeturizm website reported.

The hotels on the island are fully booked, and the local authorities said all state agencies are ready to ensure that the liturgy is held at the proper level. reported by Armenia News

The church was restored by the Turkish government funding, and in 2007, it opened as a museum.

Subsequently, the Armenian Patriarchate of Constantinople (Istanbul) petitioned to the Turkish government to get permission for offering Divine Liturgy at this church once a year.

In March 2010, the Turkish minister of culture and tourism announced that the permission was granted to offer church service there and install a cross on the dome of this church.

In 2015, however, the patriarchate decided to cancel that year’s Divine Liturgy at this church, and due to the terrorist attacks in the area.

And afterward, the Turkish authorities suspended the holding of religious rituals at this church.

This matter is reflected also on the International Religious Freedom Report for 2016 of the US Department of State.

 

Filed Under: Articles Tagged With: Akhtamar, Church

Armenian Church gives demonstrators 1 week to halt actions otherwise protester-priest will be defrocked

July 10, 2018 By administrator

Amid ongoing protests against Catholicos Garegin II’s rule, the Armenian Church today held a Supreme Spiritual Council Assembly sitting, chaired by the Catholicos himself.

The Assembly decided to defrock Koryun Arakelyan, the priest who is leading the protests. But the Catholicos himself halted the decision, calling for love and understanding. The Assembly subsequently issued a one-week deadline for the protesters to cease their actions.

Earlier the protesters had even breached into the Armenian Church HQ and began a sit-in. Only after few days police intervened.

 

Filed Under: Articles Tagged With: Armenian, Church, demonstrators

Turkey: Historic Armenian Church Now Used as a Stable

April 30, 2018 By administrator

The historic church in Erzurum now being used as a stable. (Photo: Courtesy)

The historic church in Erzurum now being used as a stable. (Photo: Courtesy)

BY UZAY BULUT,

The historic Armenian Surp (Saint) Minas church in the city of Erzurum in eastern Turkey is now used as a stable. The Turkish newspaper Erzurum Pusula recently covered the situation in an article titled “If you have a church, you have a nuisance!”

“There are ruins of a historic church in Gezkoy which has been nationalized,” said the report. “The Council of Monuments has recently registered it. Actually, if we leave aside its architecture that is different from the other structures there, one thousand witnesses would be needed to call it a church. It is collapsing, completely uncared for and unprotected. This church has an interesting trait. It belongs to an individual.”

According to the report, a lawyer from Erzurum “bought” the church which is located in the Aziziye town in 1934. After he died, the church passed on to his heirs. The church is now used by drunk people in the summer and as a stable in the winter.

The mayor of the town of Aziziye, Muhammet Cevdet Orhan, wants to either turn the “deserted, unused” church into a mosque or restore it, claimed the newspaper, which concluded the report by saying that “the church has caused such trouble for the mayor.”

The news site Haberler also reported in 2012 that the church was used as a stable.

The heir to the church, Sabri Ergin, lives in Germany. The newspaper Agos conducted an interview with him last year. Ergin said that he inherited the Surp Minas church from his mother, who had inherited a piece of land from his father on which the church is located. “The church cannot be used right now as there are no more congregants there,” said Ergin, who continued:

“When I went to the Armenian patriarchate, someone there told me to give the church to him. We are not distributing property here. Also, some other people wanted to buy it. They told me that some other church was sold for 1,5 million dollars but I did not sell the church.”

Ergin added that he had been threatened by the Aziziye municipality twice with destroying the church: “They told me they would destroy the church if I did not get it restored in a week. So, I got the church registered as a historical monument in 2010.” But in 2016, the municipality contacted Ergin again and told him they wanted the church to be destroyed. Ergin said that he would take the case to the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) if the church, which also has the status of a historical monument, was destroyed.

Ergin added he prepared a project to restore the church in 2012 but he could not realize it as he could not provide the required finance: “When we prepared the project, the budget turned out to be about 500 thousand dollars. We want the church to host cultural and artistic activities… If there were even a small Armenian congregation there today, it would be much easier.”

 

From Karin/ Theodosiopolis to Erzurum

Erzurum, or Karin in Armenian, is a city located in the Armenian highland of eastern Turkey. It was for centuries within the borders of Armenian kingdoms. It then became a part of the Roman Empire. But the population remained pre-dominantly Armenian under the Roman rule and the city still had a sizable Armenian community under the Ottoman rule.

However, other than “Islamized” or hidden Armenian Christians whose exact number is unknown, there is not an Armenian or other Christian community in Erzurum today. It is now a fully Islamized city. There are only Turks, Kurds, and Azerbaijanis.  How did this happen?

 

According to the International Dictionary of Historic Places: Southern Europe, “The modern city of Erzurum traces its origins to the founding of Theodosiopolis in the late fourth century. Both the Arabs and the Turks knew Theodosiopolis as Arz-ar Rum, variously translated as ‘Land of the Romans,’ ‘Domain of the Byzantines,’ or ‘Frontier of Greece,’ from which its present name is derived.”

The Turks referred to all orthodox Christian communities in Anatolia as the ‘Roman community,’ and labeled the people ‘Rum,’ meaning Roman, a term which is used until this day.

The city was a continued target of Muslim armies such as the Arabs, the Turkish tribes from the Central Asia, the Ottomans and the Turkish republic.

“Toward the end of the fourth century A.D. Roman emperor Thedosius I built a frontier fortress on the site of what is now Erzurum and named it Theodosiopolis… Theodosiopolis fell in 653 to the Arabs, who occupied the town for nearly a century… Theodosiopolis became a Byzantine dependency, called Karin, in 978, but shortly thereafter it was taken by the Bagratid Armenian kingdom of Kars.”

 

Turkish armies from central Asia: New frontiersmen of Islam

“In the eleventh century, a new threat appeared from the east: a Turkoman clan led by Seljukid chieftains. The Turks originally emerged in central Asia in the seventh or eighth century, began migrating westward, and encountered the Arabs in the ninth century. The Arabs had converted the majority of Turks to Islam by the end of the tenth century, and recruited them as warriors. The appearance of the Seljuk Turks in Anatolia set the stage for the decline of Roman-Byzantine-Christian rule.

“The Seljuks began raiding Byzantine territory in 1045; a large force led by Ibrahim Inal sacked Theodosiopolis in 1048. [In 1071] Seljuk sultan Alp Arslan… decisively defeated the demoralized army of Byzantine emperor Romanus VI Diogenes in Manzikert (now Malazgirt), in eastern Anatolia.

“After the battle of Manzikert, the mainly Armenian inhabited Erzurum fell to the Seljuks, and the way was left open for uncontrolled Turkoman clans – the new frontiersmen of Islam, the creators of a basically Turkish Turkey – to swarm across Anatolia.”

The imposition of the religion, language and customs of the Turks spread steadily across the region. The Seljuk Turks emerged as the champions of Sunni Islam not only against Christianity, but also against the Shia.

In 1514, the Ottoman Turks captured Erzurum from Esmail, a Shiite Turkoman clan leader. Christians in the Ottoman Empire became “dhimmis”, indigenous non-Muslim populations who surrendered by a treaty to Muslim domination.

 

Massacres and forced conversions

The author Robert Aram Kaloosdian, whose father was from the village of Tadem in Kharpert, which is today called Elazig in eastern Turkey, writes in his 2015 book “Tadem, My Father’s Village: Extinguished during the 1915 Armenian Genocide”:

“Heavy-handed government discriminated against non-Muslims, including Jews as well as Greeks and other Christians, and treated them with contempt and suspicion. Religious discrimination and forcible conversion to Islam wore down the Armenian population, and some communities abandoned their Christian faith.

“By the 1800s, the empty churches and monasteries across the countryside stood silent witness to a population that had left the Armenian Church out of fear and coercion. In some areas of ancient Armenia, such as the sparsely populated Dersim plateau, the locals had mostly turned to Islam to avoid persecution and the burdens of onerous taxation.”

The mid-1890s were when the Armenians were exposed to widespread massacres across the Ottoman Empire.  The genocidal massacres of large numbers of Armenians were sanctioned by Ottoman Sultan Abdulhamid II between 1894 and 1897. The estimates range from a “low” of 80,000 to a high of 300,000.  However, the 1915 genocide dwarfed these previous massacres and resulted in the systematic extermination of up to 1.5 million Armenians across the Ottoman Empire.

 

Genocide in Erzurum

The Armenians in Erzurum as well as other Ottoman cities were wiped out from their homeland by the most savage methods imaginable. Max Erwin von Scheubner-Richter, the German Vice Consul in Erzurum in 1915, describes the genocide in the city: “They killed the women, children, and elderly people by burning them to death, shearing, strangling the rivers, group shooting and rolling them from the rocks to deep rifts. Starving and frosted people were condemned to death through brutal torture. Thousands of deported Armenians were dying on the way and epidemics in deportation camps.”

Professor Ugur Ümit Üngör writes in his article “The Armenian Genocide, 1915”:

“In early 1915, 40,000 Armenians living in the city of Erzurum were deported to Der el-Zor. The German Consul in Erzurum reported in no uncertain terms that the deportation would end in ‘an absolute extermination’ (eine absolute Ausrottung). And indeed, many Armenians had already died or were seriously weakened even before the convoy from Erzurum had reached the provincial border. Once they reached the city of Kemah the survivors of the march were slaughtered and their bodies thrown into the Euphrates. The total number of Armenians from Erzurum that actually reached Der el-Zor was probably less than 200, a destruction rate of 99.3 percent.”

 

Ongoing cultural genocide

Since the Armenians and other Christians have largely been exterminated, it has become almost impossible to preserve the historic churches in Turkey. Many Armenian, Greek and Assyrian/Syriac churches in the country have either been destroyed or used for sacrilegious purposes.

The researcher Raffi Bedrosyan writes: “As the Armenian population got wiped out of Anatolia in 1915, so did these churches and schools. Along with the hundreds of thousands of homes, shops, farms, orchards, factories, warehouses, and mines belonging to the Armenians, the church and school buildings also disappeared or were converted to other uses. If not burnt and destroyed outright in 1915 or left to deteriorate by neglect, they became converted buildings for banks, radio stations, mosques, state schools, or state monopoly warehouses for tobacco, tea, sugar, etc., or simply private houses and stables for the Turks and Kurds.”

Native Christian civilizations have for centuries been systematically erased from Anatolia by Turkish governments and citizens. It is high time that the West finally stood up to protect the churches and other Christian sites in Turkey that are on the verge of disappearing forever.

 

Uzay Bulut is a Turkish journalist formerly based in Ankara. She is presently in Washington, D.C. Follow her on Twitter at twitter.com/uzayb

Filed Under: Articles, Genocide Tagged With: a stable., Church, Erzurum, The historic

Jerusalem’s Holy Sepulchre church Shutdown,  Church leaders accused Israel of a “systematic and unprecedented attack against Christians in the Holy Land.”

February 25, 2018 By administrator

Jerusalem's Holy Sepulchre church shut

Jerusalem’s Holy Sepulchre church shut

A group of Christian leaders have closed the famous Church of the Holy Sepulchre in protest at Israeli taxation and land policy. In a statement, they said that Christians in the region were under attack.

The leaders of several Christian faith groups on Sunday said the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, where many Christians believe Jesus was buried, would be closed until further notice.

A statement from Roman Catholic, Greek Orthodox and Armenian Church leaders accused Israel of a “systematic and unprecedented attack against Christians in the Holy Land.”

The leaders voiced consternation with plans to tax church assets that are considered to be commercial.

“As a measure of protest, we decided to take this unprecedented step of closure of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre,” the statement said. It added that the tax changes appeared to be “an attempt to weaken the Christian presence in Jerusalem.”

‘Hotels, halls and businesses’

The clerics also expressed concern about legislation being considered by the Israeli government that would allow the expropriation of church property sold to anonymous buyers.

Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat said in a statement that the city was owed 650 million shekels ($186 million, €152 million) in uncollected taxes. He stressed that the Holy Sepulchre and other churches were exempt from the taxes and that they would remain so.

Barkat stressed the changes applied only to establishments such as “hotels, halls and businesses” that were owned by the churches.

Christian leaders say the changes mean they will be unable to conduct their social and religious work, including the delivery of social services to those in need.

Custody of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem’s Old City is shared by the Greek Orthodox, Armenian and Roman Catholic denominations. Tensions between the groups have impaired restoration work over the past 200 years, but it was eventually deemed unsafe and only reopened last March after repair work was carried out.

rc/jlw (Reuters, AFP, AP)

Filed Under: News Tagged With: Church, Holy Sepulchre, Jerusalem's, shut

ISIL claims responsibility for Russian church shooting in which five women were killed

February 19, 2018 By administrator

isil russian church

ISIL has claimed responsibility for a deadly attack on an Orthodox church congregation in the North Caucasus region of Dagestan that left five women dead.

An unidentified gunman fired at worshippers leaving the church in the town of Kizlyar in the mainly Muslim region, th National reports, citing local press.

The regional internal affairs ministry said in a statement that the assailant used a hunting rifle, and that four women were killed on the spot, while the attacker was “eliminated”.

A fifth woman died of her injuries in hospital, health ministry spokeswoman Zalina Mourtazalieva told TASS news agency.

Two Russian police officers were injured in the attack.

According to a local official, the assailant was a local man in his early twenties, the Interfax news agency reported.

The Russian RBK daily quoted an Orthodox priest saying the attacker had fired on churchgoers following an afternoon service on Sunday.

“We had finished the mass and were beginning to leave the church. A bearded man ran towards the church shouting ‘Allahu Akbar’ [God is greatest] and killed four people,” Father Pavel told RBK.

“He was carrying a rifle and a knife,” he said.

Filed Under: Articles Tagged With: Church, ISIL, Russian

Iconic Armenian church survives war but not plunder in Turkey

December 22, 2017 By administrator

By Mahmut Bozarslan,

DIYARBAKIR, Turkey — In the 1950s, the Turkish state returned the centuries-old Surp Giragos Armenian Church in Diyarbakir to the city’s Armenian community, after having used it as a warehouse for years. Armenian writer Migirdic Margosyan, a native of Diyarbakir, describes how ironsmiths, carpenters, painters and goldsmiths from the city’s “Infidel Quarter” joined hands to “revive that wreck” and reopen it quickly to worship, keen to preserve “the legacy of their ancestors.”

Little could the volunteers have known then that the ordeal involving the largest Armenian church in the Middle East was far from over. By the early 1980s, Surp Giragos was a church without a congregation as Diyarbakir’s Armenians dwindled away. Abandoned to its fate, the church fell into decay. When a new restoration began in 2008, only its walls were standing, with the windows broken, the roof collapsed and the interiors filled with soil.

During the three-year restoration, every corner of the church was meticulously repaired. An expert craftsman — one of only three left in Turkey — was brought to Diyarbakir and worked for half a year to renovate and complete the seven altars. The overhaul was crowned with a new church bell, brought from Russia. As services resumed, the church became a meeting point for Armenians — natives of Diyarbakir but now scattered across the world — and an attraction for tourists visiting the city.

This new atmosphere, however, was short-lived. In the fall off 2015, security forces cracked down on urban militants of the Kurdistan Workers Party, who had entrenched themselves behind ditches and barricades in residential areas in Sur, the ancient heart of Diyarbakir, where the church is nestled. Only months before the clashes erupted, UNESCO had put Sur on its World Heritage list.

The militants used the church as an emplacement and infirmary to treat their wounded, as evidenced by the medical waste found later inside. As the security forces advanced, the militants left the church, and this time the security forces used it. After the monthslong clashes, the church emerged with its yard walls ruined and riddled with bullets. Still, the Armenian community took solace in the fact that the church itself was standing. The authorities promised to repair the church and return it to the community.

The church was presumed to be under protection since the area remained sealed off even after the clashes ended in March 2016. Since then, however, the church has become the target of thieves, who broke in twice and stole various objects. How the thieves managed to sneak in remains a mystery, for even members of the church board need official permission to enter.

Most recently, a more malicious intruder — or intruders — broke into the church, apparently with a sledgehammer that was used to smash altars and reliefs. Armen Demirciyan, who used to work as a caretaker at Surp Giragos, said the news of plunder and desecration “cut him to the bone.”

He told Al-Monitor, “We had one place here and it is now gone. I am devastated. We had so many valuable things — they are all gone. We had an antique rifle — they have stolen it. They have broken the altars and stolen the books. In short, the place has been ravaged.”

For Demirciyan, the loss is not only about a church, but also about a meeting point for a community scattered across the world. “We worked so hard to restore it and now all our efforts have gone down the drain. It was a place that brought us [Armenians] together,” he added.

After news of the latest assault, Aram Atesyan, the Istanbul-based acting patriarch of Turkey’s Armenian community, flew to Diyarbakir in late November to inspect the damage. Visibly shaken after the visit, he said, “They have broken everything with a sledgehammer. It had taken three years to make those handmade ornaments. The altars are all broken to pieces.” What was ravaged, he stressed, is not solely an Armenian house of worship but a historical monument that belongs to Turkey. “Those monuments are the riches of the entire country,” he said. “This place does not belong only to us — it belongs to this state and these lands.”

Gaffur Turkay, a member of the church board and a resident of Diyarbakir, witnessed how the church fell into decay in the 1980s and then was reborn half a decade ago. “We were so moved, so full of hope after we brought the church … back into magnificent shape. We would go there every day just to sit and take care of it,” he told Al-Monitor.

Turkay was among those who inspected the damage after the clashes. “The church was on its feet. At least its basic elements — the walls, the roof and the tower bell — were intact,” he said. Despite some damage in the interior, the board was content that the edifice survived the clashes in much better shape than the Armenian Catholic Church and several mosques nearby, he noted.

Turkay said that as the uncertainty in Sur dragged on and the area remained off-limits to residents, “We got permissions from time to time to check on the church. In the past three or four months, we began to discover new damage each time we visited the church. We informed the authorities several times and asked them to find a solution but, unfortunately, the rings of the columns were ripped off first and then the altars were shattered with hammers. All figurines, reliefs, paintings and other materials were ransacked.”

For Turkay, the fact that hammer-wielding vandals could enter and damage the house of worship while members of the church board could only go there after receiving permission is a bitter pill to swallow.

Journalists, for instance, need permissions from various institutions in both Diyarbakir and Ankara to take pictures or film inside Surp Giragos, and sometimes even those permissions are not enough. Last year, this reporter witnessed how policemen standing on guard at the corner of the church turned away a foreign television crew, although it had obtained permission to film in the area. Curiously, the intruders are able to elude the security measures.

“Only construction workers can enter [Sur]. A very limited number of people can go and they are all under the control of the authorities,” Turkay said. “If this beautiful structure is going to be missing something else each time we go, this is a very serious problem.”

Mahmut Bozarslan is based in Diyarbakir, the central city of Turkey’s mainly Kurdish southeast. A journalist since 1996,

Filed Under: Genocide, News Tagged With: Armenian, armenian genocide, Church, Diyarbakir, iconic

Armenian church in Kayseri to be renovated

December 22, 2017 By administrator

Armenian church kayseri

Armenian church kayseri

The Armenian Surp Grigor Lusavorich (Gregory the Illumination) Church in Kayseri, Turkey, will be restored, Hurriyet reports. The municipality will allocate 3.5 million liras (over $900 thousand) for the purpose.

Metropolitan Municipality Deputy Secretary General Hamdi Elcım said that the restoration and repair works will start at the beginning of 2018 after the permission from Kayseri Regional Protection Board of the Ministry of Culture and Tourism. The project is expected to be completed within 4.5 months.

According to the source, the church was first mentioned in 1191. The demolished church was rebuilt in 1859. In 1885, the church was renovated with the support of the people in a short time.

The city of Kayseri has an important place in the history of the Armenian church. With a population of 400,000 in 250, Kayseri is where St. Gregory the Illumination grew up, was educated and became Christian.

Filed Under: Articles Tagged With: Armenian, Church, Kayseri

Armenian church reopens in Istanbul after renovation

December 18, 2017 By administrator

The Surb Khach (Apparition of the Holy Cross) Armenian Church in  Kurucesme district of Constantinople (now Istanbul) has been reopened after reconstruction, Akunq.net reports, citing Agos.

According to the source, the church was anointed on December 9 by Archbishop Sahak Mashalyan. Attending the ceremony were clergymen from the Armenian Patriarchate of Constantinople, representatives of the local Armenian community.

Addressing the audience, Archbishop Mashalyan stressed the importance of taking care of the Armenian churches.

“We have to keep our churches open and pray. Churches are the heart of society, not just the church, but the spirit of the church. I see here today the students of the Surp Cross High School. My wish is to see young people in the church every Sunday,” he said.

After the ceremony dinner was served in the hall of the church. Speaking at the dinner, member of the Board Saro Benkliyan thanked the guests and those who contributed to the reconstruction of the church. The meal ended with Mashalyan giving a plaque of thanks to Myrirdir Sertsimsek, who worked on the renovation of the church.

Filed Under: Articles Tagged With: Armenian, Church, İstanbul

Garo Paylan brings the issue of Armenian Patriarch’s election to Turkish Parliament

December 12, 2017 By administrator

Garo Paylan

Garo Paylan

Member of the Turkish Parliament, ethnic Armenian Garo Paylan raised the issue of Armenian patriarchal elections in the Turkish parliament, Ermenihaber.am reports.

In a written note to Süleyman Soylu, Paylan asked about the reasons of the Turkish government’s intervention in the elections of the Armenian Patriarch of Istanbul.

“Armenian Patriarch Mesrop Mutafyan has not been able to perform his duties for nine years because of illness. To start the process of election of a new Patriarch, clergymen of the Armenian Patriarchate elected Karekin Bekchyan as Locum Tenens,” Paylan noted.

He reminded that the Patriarchate then sent a notice to the Ministry of Interior through the Istanbul Governor’s Office. “No response has been received, although the two-round elections were planned to be held on December 10 and 13,” he added.

The lawmaker cited media reports claiming that Istanbul Governor Vasip Sahin does not recognize Karekin Bekcyan as Locum Tenens  and offers to choose between the two other Archbishops of Istanbul.

Garo Paylan then voiced the concern of the Armenian community connected with the dragging out of the process and the government’s intervention “in the organization of the election, which the Armenian community has the right to.”

Paylan then asks to clarify the grounds of the government’s intervention in the process, explain the reasons of the delay and demands clarification on when the “government will stop creating obstacles in the organization of the Patriarchal election.”

Filed Under: Articles, Genocide Tagged With: Armenian, Church, Garo Paylan

HAVERHILL Construction begins early on new Armenian church

December 6, 2017 By administrator

 

By Mike LaBella,

HAVERHILL — Members of the Armenian Apostolic Church at Hye Pointe are celebrating the start of construction of their new sanctuary, which is being built next to their Family Life and Cultural Center, which opened in April at 1280 Boston Road.

The Rev. Vart Gyozalyan, pastor of the church, said the original goal was to begin construction in two or three years.

“We were able to begin earlier than expected with help from two major donors,” he said. “One member of our church told me that she can’t wait to pray in the sanctuary.”

Since the center opened this spring, services have been held there, while parishioners await the construction of their new sanctuary, a place of worship.

Construction began last week, and Gyozalyan hopes the project will be completed by August 2018.

He said the design of the sanctuary borrows from traditional Armenian architecture, just as the design of the Family Life and Cultural Center did.

Since the grand opening of the center this past spring, the parish has held a number of successful and well-attended events there, including a Mother’s Day Dance put on by the church’s Youth Group, an Armenian spring food festival hosted by the church’s Women’s Guild, an Armenian food festival in August that was organized by the parish council, and the recent Armenian fall food festival hosted by the Women’s Guild.

Hundreds of people attended each event in the new center, which has a capacity of about 450 people.

“We were able to do all of these things because of the much larger capacity of the building and the convenience of our new, fully-equipped commercial kitchen,” Gyozalyan said. “We could not hold functions of this size before.”

Gyozalyan said that after the grand opening of the Family Life and Cultural Center, an Armenian man with ties to the parish approached him with an offer to donate money, if the parish would move forward with construction of a sanctuary as soon as possible.

“We also approached another donor, who agreed to provide money to help build our sanctuary,” he said. “Between the two donors, we were able to move forward with construction of the sanctuary and not have to wait two or three years.”

The construction of the center marked the realization of a dream come true for parishioners, who for years had been trying to sell the former St. Gregory the Illuminator across from City Hall in order to fund construction of their new church.

The Holy Cross Armenian Apostolic Church of Lawrence merged with St. Gregory in 2002 to create the Armenian Apostolic Church at Hye Pointe, the first merged Armenian Apostolic Church in North America.

Both parish councils had previously purchased a site for their newly planned church, and put both church properties up for sale. Holy Cross sold in 2006.

There were growing problems with the St. Gregory building. It was in need of major renovations, lacked handicap accessibility and did not have enough space for parish functions.

Last year, after 15 years of trying to sell the building, the church finally found a buyer. The building was demolished this summer and in its place the new owner is building a Domino’s Pizza franchise along with one or two other retail businesses.

Church leaders said their congregation supported building a new church and selling the St. Gregory church, even if it meant seeing the building torn down, because they needed the money from the sale to build their new church and family center.

The move to a new church received the blessing of Armenians throughout the region and that of the supreme head of the Armenian Apostolic Church, his Holiness Catholicos Karekin II, who blessed the new church property in Bradford in 2007.

While the Family Life and Cultural Center was under construction, services were held at Sacred Hearts Church in Bradford.

Source: http://www.eagletribune.com/news/haverhill/construction-begins-early-on-new-armenian-church/article_fe98ba89-a32f-59fa-8031-77504e8ea8fc.html

 

Filed Under: Articles Tagged With: Armenian, Church, HAVERHILL, new

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