Syria: Armenian church in Syria’s Tell Abyad town turned into prison

July 7, 2015 By administrator

The number of Christian minorities of Syria is gradually decreasing because of the ongoing war. Few people from the local Christian Armenians still live there, while the Armenian church of Tell Abyad town was turned into a prison, according to A1+.

Syrians in Tell Abyad are now free from the rule of the Islamic State, but the number of Christians, once amounting to 6000, has significantly decreased.

First, the rebels invaded the city and plundered it, and then the jihadists came. In 2012, as the Kurdish service of Voice of America said, the church was turned into a prison, where hundreds of Christians were detained and beheaded.

The church building currently stands safe, although empty. Its destiny is unknown.

Turn empty Catholic churches into mosques, French Muslim leader says

June 15, 2015 By administrator

Mosque of Poitiers, west-central France (AFP Photo / Guillaume Souvant)

France’s top Muslim official has suggested turning empty or abandoned Catholic churches into mosques, saying as many as 5,000 are needed for the country’s Muslim population – the largest in Europe.
“It’s a delicate issue, but why not?” Dalil Boubakeur, rector of the Grand Mosque in Paris and the president of the French Council of Muslim Faith, told Europe 1 radio on Monday.
There are currently about 2,500 mosques in France with another 300 under construction, but the number falls short of what is needed, he said. With roughly 5 million Muslims in France, at least 5,000 mosques are needed, Boubakeur said. Report RT

During the interview with French radio he gave an example of the transition of a church into a mosque in Clermont-Ferrand, which was welcomed by the local religious community. The church had been abandoned for more than 30 years and the building was given to the Muslim community in 2012.

“It’s the same God, these are neighboring rites, fraternal, and I think that Muslims and Christians can coexist and live together,” he said.
It’s not the first time the lack of places of worship for millions of Muslims has been brought up in France. In April, Boubakeur called for doubling the number of mosques.
His remarks were welcomed by the Christian community as a “legitimate” demand.
“Muslims should, like Christians and Jews, be able to practice their religion,” Monseigneur Ribadeau-Dumas, spokesperson for the Bishops’ Conference of France, told French radio station Europe 1.

However, this suggestion has been criticized by the far-right National Front party. In April, Florian Philippot, its vice-president, argued France doesn’t need more, because “100 percent of places of radicalization are mosques.”

The party’s leader Marine Le Pen called to stop the construction of new mosques in March.
“We must today freeze the construction of new mosques while we verify the origin of their financing,” she said in an interview to France 24.
The question of building closer ties with the Muslim community was discussed at the talks between the French government and about 150 Muslim leaders in Paris on Monday.
French Prime Minister Manuel Valls stressed there was no link between extremism and Islam.
“We must say all of this is not Islam,” he said. “The hate speech, anti-Semitism that hides behind anti-Zionism and hate for Israel… the self-proclaimed imams in our neighborhoods and our prisons who are promoting violence and terrorism…
“Islam still provokes misunderstandings, prejudices, and is rejected by some citizens,” he added. “Yet Islam is here to stay in France. It’s the second largest religious group in our country.”

The first conference between the government and Muslim community leaders comes five months after the Charlie Hebdo and kosher store jihadist attacks in Paris that killed 17 people.
The terrorists responsible for the attacks “belong to a different world than we do,” said Boubakeur, speaking at the conference.
There has been a huge increase in anti-Muslim incidents in France following the Islamist attacks in Paris. A report issued in January by the National Observatory Against Islamophobia said that over the month there has been an 110-percent increase in attacks.

Armenian Church of St. Giragos in Diyarbakir wins Grand Prix at Europa Nostra Awards

June 12, 2015 By administrator

By Siranush Ghazanchyan,

The Armenian Church of St. Giragos in Diyarbakir has won a Grand Prix of the European Union Prize for Cultural Heritage/Europa Nostra Awards.

In a ceremony in Oslo, Norway, the winners of the European Union Prize for Cultural Heritage / Europa Nostra Awards were celebrated and the winners of the Grand Prix and Public Choice Award were announced for the first time.

The Public Choice Award was chosen by an open online poll and the Grand Prix winners were selected by specialist juries. Grand Prix laureates receive a €10,000 prize.

Seven projects received the Grand Prix for outstanding efforts in the protection of cultural heritage:

Liszt Academy of Music in Budapest, Hungary
Salt Valley of Añana, Basque Country, Spain
Armenian Church of St. Giragos in Diyarbakir, Turkey

Wonders of Venice: Virtual Online Treasures in St. Mark’s Area, Italy

The Rundling Association, Jameln, Germany
Churches Conservation Trust, London, United Kingdom

Programme for Owners of Rural Buildings in Estonia, Tallinn, Estonia

The European Heritage Awards Ceremony was hosted by Tibor Navracsics, European Commissioner for Education, Culture, Youth and Sport and opened by Fabian Stang, Mayor of Oslo.

The Armenian Church of St. Giragos in Diyarbakir may have been of 17th century origin, although some contend that it was completely rebuilt in the 1880s. The building suffered from appalling deterioration late in the 20th century following the decline in the local population of Armenians. The roof collapsed and the structure became derelict.

Its restoration, which has involved a good deal of totally new building, began a few years ago, thanks to the efforts of the St. Giragos Church Foundation, non-governmental groups and concerned individuals.

The European Union Prize for Cultural Heritage, or the Europa Nostra Awards, highlight some Europe’s best achievements in heritage care, and showcase remarkable efforts made in raising awareness about our cultural heritage.

Source: armradio.am

Turkey A Greek Orthodox Church door set ablaze in Istanbul

June 10, 2015 By administrator

A Greek Orthodox church’s door was set ablaze in the evening of June 9 in the Kadıköy district on Istanbul’s Anatolia side.

A door of the Hagia Triada Greek Orthodox Church was set on fire on June 9 by Muhammed Şimdi, 25, who reportedly suffers from a mental illness. The church is located on Nispetiye Street, a side street of Bahariye, Kadıköy’s main thoroughfare.

The perpetrator rolled around the church holding a paper box of paint thinner, which he used to set one of the church’s unused doors on fire at around 8:30 p.m. after he jumped over the walls of the church compound.

The door immediately caught fire and the perpetrator attempted to escape shouting “Allahu Akbar.”

He was captured by officers of the municipal police and the people who saw the flames at the time. The fire was extinguished by the locals near the scene.

Şimdi was reported to have a criminal record and to be suffering from some form of mental illness, as he had previously undergone mental treatment in the Erenköy Mental Hospital, according to police records.

Konstantin Kiracopolos, an employee working for the foundation running the church, told reporters the perpetrator set the door on fire after claiming he saw Jesus Christ in a dream. The foundation has filed a complaint against the perpetrator, Kiracopolos added.

“Forty Martyrs: Armenian Chanting from Aleppo” album released – Video

June 7, 2015 By administrator

The Lost Origin Sounds Series has released “Forty Martyrs: Armenian Chants from Aleppo at the centenary of the Armenian Genocide, the bloody Ottoman campaign that drove many Armenians to the centuries-old community in Aleppo, World Music Central reports.

The video Forty Martyrs: Armenian Chanting from Aleppo presents a unique new recording of sacred Armenian music.

In one of Aleppo’s oldest neighborhoods rests a church, once a focal point and a haven. The head priest there, The Very Reverend Yeznig Zegchanian, agreed to chant, but he was going to do it now and he was only going to do it once. Jason Hamacher, a drummer from Washington DC who had developed a serious fascination with Syria’s endangered spiritual traditions, dashed back to his hotel to get his equipment.

The result, recorded in the resonant Forty Martyrs Armenian Orthodox Church, captures a time, place, and endangered language. The city is entrapped in Syria’s agonizing civil war. The church’s congregants, descendants of several waves of Armenian refugees, have been scattered throughout the region and beyond. The language of the chants, West Armenian, once spoken in what is now Turkey, seems destined to die out in a generation.

Istanbul, Turks call for reopening the Hagia Sophia Christian Church as a mosque

May 31, 2015 By administrator

Thousands of people performed the morning prayer on Sunday in front of the historic Hagia Sophia museum, a former church turned into a mosque after the conquest of Istanbul, while demanding that it be turned back into a mosque.

The huge group prayer in front of the Hagia Sophia, called Aya Sofya in Turkish, was held to commemorate the 562nd anniversary of the conquest, according to organizers.

A number of groups from across İstanbul and Turkey gathered in front of the Hagia Sophia at 4 a.m. on Sunday as part of an event organized by the Anatolian Youth Association (AGD), which aims for the Hagia Sophia museum to be open for prayer again. The organization made statements such as “Chains to be broken, Aya Sofya to be opened” and “Come with your prayer rug.”

Speaking to the crowd gathered in front of Hagia Sophia, AGD head Salih Turhan called for the museum to be turned into a mosque again. “You demonstrated an important stance by coming here from the different parts of Turkey to break the chains of Aya Sofya,” Turhan said. AGD İstanbul head Ali Uğur Bulut defined the Hagia Sophia as the symbol of İstanbul and the conquest and stated that it is unacceptable for it to be closed to prayer.

After the speeches delivered by AGD members, Firas Qazzaz, the muezzin of the Al-Aqsa Mosque, appeared on the platform established by the AGD, and recited the adhan (call to prayer). Following the adhan, Seccad Mustafa lead the morning prayer.

After the morning prayer, Abdurrahman Sadien, who won first place in an international Quran memorization and recitation contest, read the Quran to the crowd.

The Hagia Sophia Museum was first dedicated as an Orthodox patriarchal basilica in the year 360. Until 1453 it served as the Greek Patriarchal cathedral of Constantinople, as the city was then named. Following the city’s conquest by the Ottoman Empire, the building was turned into a mosque in 1453 and remained a mosque until 1931, when it was closed to the public for four years. It was reopened by the Turkish republican authorities in 1935 as a museum.

Nationalist Turks believe that barring worship at Hagia Sophia is an affront against Sultan Mehmet, who designated it as a mosque and who, like other Ottoman leaders, served as caliph to the Islamic world.

There have been claims that Hagia Sophia will be reopened as a mosque in the run up to the general election on June 7 to boost support for the ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party) among religious Turks. The office of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan denied last week a report which claimed that the president was planning to perform a prayer at the Hagia Sophia with Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu on Saturday, May 30, a day which coincided with official celebrations of the conquest of İstanbul.

IHH members perform morning prayer in front of Israeli Embassy on Mavi Marmara incident anniversary

In another incident over the weekend, a group gathered in front of the Israeli Embassy building and performed the Islamic morning prayer on Sunday to commemorate fifth anniversary of the raid on the Mavi Marmara ship in 2010.

A group of people who set off from the central Anatolian city of Konya to attend a march for the liberation of Jerusalem organized by the Humanitarian Aid Foundation (İHH) in İstanbul made a stop in the capital city of Ankara.

Gathering in front of the Israeli Embassy building, the group laid their prayer rugs and performed the morning prayer.

The Mavi Marmara was a Turkish ship that was stormed by commandos enforcing the Israeli naval blockade of the Palestinian-governed Gaza Strip. The incident resulted in the deaths of eight Turkish nationals and one Turkish-American activist on May 31, 2010. The aid vessel had been attempting to break Israel’s long-standing naval blockade of the Gaza Strip.

Source: Zaman

Armenian Church Sues Turkey for Return of Seized Monastery

May 28, 2015 By administrator

Dorian Jones

May 27, 2015 2:41 PM

ISTANBUL, TURKEY—

71FEF994-E13B-432A-AECA-6D638CC3BCED_w640_r1_s_cx0_cy4_cw0

The Armenian Apostolic Church has filed a case in Turkey’s Constitutional Court for the return of land and the iconic Kozan monastery in Adana. The monastery once was the largest belonging to the Armenian Church in Turkey, and it is one of thousands of properties seized by the Turkish state. Report Voice of America

This is widely seen as a groundbreaking legal case for the prospect of reclaiming the Catholicosate of Cilicia, which dates back to 1293, was taken over a century ago by Turkish authorities, during the mass killings of Armenians. Ankara has strongly denied the killings by Ottoman Turks was genocide.

Church spokesperson Teni Pirri-Simonian said the timing of the suit is deliberate.

“We are doing this 100 years after the genocide, for the youth. It is the center of our faith, it is the center of our identity. Therefore the church, by having its headquarters, is also giving life to all these symbols,” said Pirri-Simonian. “Now if it would have its ripple effect, of course it will have it. The church left more than 1,000 churches in different parishes, in different towns that our people were living in before the genocide.”

Pressuring Ankara

The case is not expected to be the last faced by Turkish authorities. Analysts say Yerevan and the wider Armenian Diaspora see the opening of the case as a means of adding pressure on Ankara to recognize the genocide claims.

Political scientist Cengiz Aktar of Istanbul’s Suleyman Sah University said the Armenian Diaspora and its supporters are investing heavily in the project.

“There is now a worldwide effort to develop more and more claims at all levels. There are two big groups, and one is based in the United States and the other in France, who come with extensive records of properties confiscated or taken by force, illegal action,” said Aktar.

Estimates of the value of the properties being sought could run into tens of billions of dollars. The Armenian Church in Istanbul, however, has remained silent about the case.

Journalist Fatih Gokhan Diler of Agos, Turkey’s bilingual Turkish Armenian newspaper, said the silence likely is a combination of rivalry and fear.

“There is [a] certain rivalry between the Church in Armenia and the Church in Istanbul. So they [are] not always on the same side on these kind of cases,” said Diler. “And they do not want to speak much about Armenian genocide, confiscated Armenian properties and all hard issue. They cannot say openly their views, because they might be some problems coming from the government.”

Turkey’s Constitutional Court

The ruling AK Party, which is in the midst of a general election, has not commented on the case. It did introduce a limited program of returning some confiscated properties taken from Turkey’s Christian minorities, but that program has ended.

Turkey’s Constitutional Court has not yet decided whether to accept this latest case filed by the Armenian Church.

The Armenian Church has said if it fails, it will take the case to the European Court of Human Rights; but in January, the Strasbourg court ruled in Turkey’s favor in the case of a local Armenian foundation seeking the return of a building in Istanbul.

Former European Court judge Riza Turmen warned it is far from certain the Armenian Church will be successful.

“These [are] very difficult cases because of the past history. When [going] to court, because of the time that has elapsed, there are many legal obstacles for these cases to become successful,” said Turmen.

With potentially hundreds of cases by individual members of the Armenians Diaspora, as well the Armenian Church, observers warn that Ankara could be facing a wave of litigation, both nationally and internationally.

The Armenian Church mcho Arakelots the Mush region (Turkey) Turkish victim treasure hunters …

May 26, 2015 By administrator

The Armenian Church of Arakelots monastery (Holy Apostles) of Mush (Western Armenia, now Turkey) continues to deteriorate, victim Turks treasure hunters. According to the Turkish newspaper Milliyet, the last monastery church mcho Arakelots located near the town of Arak in the province of Mush is half destroyed, with box gold diggers or “treasure of the Armenians” who dug in the church basement and the walls threaten to collapse. They also dug under Armenian graves.

Arakelots had significant meaning for Armenians. He said that 23 graves were desecrated and that, even inside the church a large hole had been dug. He also filed a complaint against theft of materials of the Armenian Church, including outdoor ornamental stones.

Krikor Amirzayan

Armenian Church Leader Speaks on Suit to Reclaim Seized Property

May 19, 2015 By administrator

By RICK GLADSTONE MAY 18, 2015

A lawsuit in Turkey filed by the Armenian Church to recover its ancient headquarters, seized a century ago during the Armenian genocide, is the “first legal step” of a goal to reclaim all Armenian property seized by the Turks, a worldwide leader of the church said Monday.

The leader, Aram I, Catholicos of the Holy See of Cilicia, also said that if the Turkish legal authorities rejected the lawsuit, it would “deepen the divide” between Turkey and the 10-million-member Armenian diaspora.

Aram I spoke in an interview at The New York Times while on a visit to diaspora communities in the Northeast after having participated in genocide centennial events in Washington.

He is a leading advocate of the effort to increase global recognition of the 1915-23 killings of 1.5 million Armenians by Ottoman Turks as a genocide, a description embraced by Pope Francis, the European Parliament and legislatures of more than 20 nations but angrily rejected by Turkey’s government, which calls it a distortion of history.

Legislatures of many American states also have called the killings a genocide. The White House has yet to do so, but Aram I said, “I am sure President Obama, in his heart, knows that this was genocide.”

On April 27, lawyers for the church filed a suit with the Constitutional Court of Turkey asserting that the headquarters of the Catholicosate in Sis, part of the Kozan district in southern Turkey’s Adana Province, was wrongly seized and should be returned.

The headquarters, which dates to 1293 and included a cathedral and monastery, was once the epicenter of Armenian Christian life. It was among the tens of thousands of Armenian properties commandeered and plundered during the last days of the Ottoman Empire and the scattering of Armenian survivors. The headquarters was re-established in 1930, in Antelias, Lebanon.

Aram I, who at 68 is the first Lebanese-born leader of the Catholicosate of Cilicia, said he had decided to proceed with a lawsuit after having consulted with 30 legal experts, including some from Turkey. While the church’s efforts to achieve an international acknowledgment of the genocide were important, “after 100 years, I thought it was high time that we put the emphasis on reparation,” he said.

“This is the headquarters of the church,” he said. “This is the first legal step. That will be followed by our claim to return all the churches, the monasteries, the church-related properties and, finally, the individual properties. We should move step by step.”

There has been, as yet, no response by the Constitutional Court to the suit, and the Armenian Church leader speculated that its judges may be ignoring it. But the mayor of Kozan, Musa Ozturk, signaled within days of the suit that the church would have a fight on its hands.

“Not even an iota of land is to be handed over to anyone,” Mr. Ozturk said in remarks quoted by Turkish news media. The mayor said the church had no proof of ownership.

Aram I acknowledged that the church did not have deeds, but said he considered that level of proof to be absurd considering the obvious nature of the properties. “The ownership is clear,” he said. “They are Armenian. Nobody can question the ownership or identity or history of those properties.”

The church’s lead international lawyer in the suit, Payam Akhavan, a McGill University professor and legal expert on genocide issues, said in a recent telephone interview that he planned to take the case to the European Court of Human Rights if the Turkish court rejects it. Under the European convention on human rights, all domestic remedies must be exhausted before such a case could be heard.

Mr. Akhavan said the lawsuit had been carefully framed to avoid antagonizing the Turkish authorities over the genocide issue. “We have a property claim,” he said. “We’re not asking for recognition of the Armenian genocide. We have a very pragmatic claim.”

Aram I said he had never been able to visit the ancient headquarters and feared that the local authorities had made efforts to erase its Armenian identity. He also expressed impatience with a view that the church’s confrontational stance, as seen in the lawsuit, is inconsistent with the principle of forgiveness, a basic Christian value.

“Forgiveness comes when there is confession, repentance, acceptance of sin,” he said. “Reconciliation is part of our human faith and values, but first of all, Turkey must reconcile with its own past.”

Syria: Aleppo’s 15th century Armenian Church of Forty Martyrs Destroyed

April 29, 2015 By administrator

Aleppo’s Armenian Church of Forty Martyrs destroyed (photo: iNews)

ALEPPO, Syria (A.W.)—The Armenian Church of Forty Martyrs in Judayda, Aleppo, has been destroyed. The Church was bombed with explosives placed underneath the structure through underground tunnels, reported sources.

The Prelacy of the Armenian Apostolic Church of the Eastern U.S. confirmed the destruction of the Church to the Armenian Weekly.

The Forty Martyrs Church dates back to the 15th century. The first mention of the Church appeared in the second edition of the book, The Exploit of the Holy Bible, by Father Melikseth in 1476. The bell tower was built in 1912. The Church housed khatchkars, relics, and icons, including “The Last Judgment,” a painting that dates back to 1703.

The Church was at the center of Armenian community life in Aleppo, where for centuries religious and cultural initiatives took place.

The destruction of the Forty Martyrs Church comes about four months after terrorists bombed the Armenian Catholic Cathedral Our Lady of Pity (also known as St. Rita), located next to the Armenian Catholic Archeparchy of Aleppo, leaving the church partly destroyed. In September 2014, terrorists destroyed the Armenian Genocide Memorial Church in Der Zor, Syria—considered the Auschwitz of the Armenian Genocide.

Before the start of the Syrian crisis in the spring of 2011, between 60,000-70,000 Armenians called Syria home, constituting less than 0.5 percent of the country’s total population. More than half of them lived in Aleppo, with the other half scattered in such cities as Latakia, Homs, Qamishli, Hasakeh, Yaqubiye, Raqqa, Kessab, and the capital Damascus.