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Smithsonian: What’s an ancient Roman temple doing in Armenia?

January 7, 2018 By administrator

2,500 miles from Rome and 1,500 miles from Athens in a remote corner of the South Caucasus, sits an unmistakably Hellenic temple of colossal proportions—the only remaining standing structure of its kind in the former Soviet Union, the Smithsonian magazine says in an article about the Temple of Garni in Armenia.

“I gazed, mouth agape, at its geometrically impeccable colonnade, reminiscent of the Maison Carrée in Nîmes or the Parthenon on the Athenian Acropolis. Beneath it, double-height stairs wrapped around the entire foundation, and above it, triangular pediments rested on its capitals. Pedestals displaying carvings of Atlas, the Greek sky-bearing Titan, flanked the entrance. My mind was racing: How did a Greco-Roman architectural masterpiece end up in Armenia, and what was its purpose?” says author Benjamin Kemper, a freelance food and travel writer.

The leading theory is that the temple was erected in 77 AD during the reign of Tiridates I, who, 11 years prior, had been crowned by the Roman emperor Nero. The story goes that as a token of goodwill, Nero sent the Armenian monarch back east with a cadre of Roman craftsman and a generous sum of money, resources that were used to build the fortified city of Garni and its central temple, a shrine to the ancient Armenian sun god Mihr.

Another band of academics maintains that Garni isn’t a temple at all but rather the tomb of one of the Romanized Armenian kings of the 2nd century, based on architectural similarities between Garni and contemporaneous mausoleums in Asia Minor.

“If everyone can agree on one thing, it’s that Garni Temple is pre-Christian, making its existence today somewhat miraculous: When Armenia adopted Christianity as its national religion in the 4th century—one of the first nations in the world to officially do so—King Tiridates III’s regime razed virtually all of the pagan temples. It remains a mystery why the temple at Garni survived,” the article says.

“It almost didn’t, for more natural reasons. In 1679, a violent earthquake toppled the temple and reduced it to rubble, and for three centuries the structure sat in utter disrepair. It was only in 1975—following the imprimatur of the Soviet Union—that the edifice was fully, meticulously restored to its former glory. It may seem odd that the U.S.S.R. would fund the restoration of a supposedly holy structure, given their crackdown on religion generally, but as Christina Maranci, professor of Armenian art and architecture at Tufts University, explained, “The Soviet aesthetic often prized classical forms, so Garni Temple was an inspirational place.” While most of the stones you see today are original, any missing fragments were purposely replaced with blank gray rock, so as to differentiate between the new and old materials.”

Today Garni Temple welcomes some 136,000 visitors each year, and a handful of those are Armenian Neopagans, who call the site their spiritual capital. Armenian Neopaganism is a relatively new grassroots religious movement that aims to reclaim the pre-Christian Armenian faith.

“Regardless of how visitors choose to experience Garni Temple today—as a primeval shrine to pagan gods or simply an enigmatic archaeological site—this ancient structure, with its many untold secrets, is sure to spur everyone’s imagination long into the future,” the magazine says.

Related links:

Smithsonian. What’s an Ancient Roman Temple Doing in Armenia? Read more: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/travel/whats-ancient-roman-temple-doing-armenia-1-180967756/#eo7cdYG5e4CcYQxk.99 Give the gift of Smithsonian magazine for only $12! http://bit.ly/1cGU

Filed Under: News Tagged With: Armenia, Garni, temple

New Armenian temple is beacon of hope for Yazidis

April 8, 2017 By administrator

A gleaming white structure topped with seven domes, set to be the world’s biggest Yazidi temple, is being built in a tiny village in Armenia.

Long persecuted, most recently by Islamic jihadists in Iraq, the Kurdish-speaking, religious minority hopes the new temple will prove a symbol of strength as it tries to preserve its unique blend of faiths.

Yazidis, adherents of an ancient religion rooted in Zoroastrianism, number around 35,000 in Armenia today but currently have just one tiny temple in the Caucasus country.

The new edifice, called Quba Mere Diwane, is being constructed in Aknalich, a village 35 kilometres (22 miles) from the capital, Yerevan, thanks to funding by a wealthy Moscow-based Yazidi businessman Mirza Sloyan, who was born nearby.

Aknalich is home to 150 Yazidis, as well as the existing temple, built in 2012 which only holds up to 30 people.

Created from granite and marble, the new 25-metre-high (82-foot) structure will include a large prayer hall, religious school and museum. Its seven domes represent seven angels revered by the Yazidis.

‘Glimmer of hope’ 

Of the world’s 1.5 million Yazidis, the largest community is in Iraq where they have long been one of the country’s most vulnerable minorities. Persecution by Saddam Hussein forced thousands of families to flee.

In August 2014, Yazidis were brutally targeted by Islamic State jihadists when their bastion Sinjar in northwestern Iraq was seized. They suffered crimes which the United Nations has described as genocide.

“We suffered terrible losses in Sinjar and are extremely depressed, but this temple gives us a glimmer of hope for revival,” said Sheikh Hasan Hasanyan, the spiritual leader of the Armenian Yazidis.

“If we can build such a splendid temple, that means Yazidis withstood, they didn’t give up,” he told AFP by telephone.

An old prayer 

The ex-Soviet country’s largest minority group, Yazidis are well integrated into Armenian society, enjoy freedom of religious belief, and publish Yazidi-language newspapers and textbooks.

But widespread poverty and unemployment have sent a wave of migrants to Europe, Russia and the United States in search of work.

“I hope that the new temple will motivate my children — who are living in Europe — to come back to Aknalich, remind them that they are Yazidis,” said local resident Misha Davrshyan.

Yazidis worship one God, who, they believe, created the world and entrusted it to seven Holy Beings, the most important of which is Melek Taus, or Peacock Angel.

Their unique beliefs — which over time integrated elements of Judaism, Christianity and Islam — have often been misconstrued as satanic.

Orthodox Muslims consider the peacock a demon figure and refer to Yazidis as devil-worshippers.

Fearing assimilation, Yazidis discourage marriage outside the community and even across their caste system, and strictly follow traditional customs — some refrain from eating lettuce or wearing the colour blue.

“We have no state and, as a vulnerable minority, we risk imminent assimilation if we stop protecting our traditions,” said Hasanyan.

He said he hoped that the new temple, expected to open this year, “will become a major spiritual centre for Yazidi pilgrims from all over the world.”

“There is an old Yazidi prayer asking God to give peace and happiness first to the world’s other nations and then to our tormented people,” he said.

“That’s what we will be praying for in the new temple.”

Filed Under: Articles Tagged With: Armenia, temple, Yazidi

The first Kurdish Zoroastrian temple opened in Iraqi Kurdistan

September 22, 2016 By administrator

zoroastranSULAIMANI, Iraq’s Kurdistan region,— The Zoroastrians opened their first official temple in the Kurdish city of Sulaimani in Iraqi Kurdistan on Wednesday. They lit a fire and played the frame drum or daf to celebrate the occasion, two elements of their rituals.

Zoroastrians in Iraq’s Kurdistan Region hope that their first official temple in the region will provide the right environment to “reintroduce” Kurds to their ancestral religion.

Awat Hussamaddin Tayib, the chief of the followers of the Zoroastrians in Iraqi Kurdistan—she calls it Bashur, Southern Kurdistan, in Kurdish—told Rudaw English that dozens of Kurdish people are returning to Zoroastrianism, but that some keep it secret out of fear.

Zoroastrianism was a dominant religion in the region that was largely lost following two major historical military campaigns, Tayib explained, one during the time of Alexander the Great and the other during the Islamic campaign which brought much of present-day Middle East under Islamic rule in the seventh century.

Today, some followers of Zoroastrianism are afraid to publicly practice their religion.

The war against the Islamic State, Tayib said, is on the Kurdistan border. She fears that some Islamists might not be happy about the rise of her religion.

Tayib takes pride in her religion because she can, like her male counterpart, run the affairs of her fellow Zoroastrians “without any gender discrimination.” In our religion, she explained, we only talk about human beings, and humans by nature do not recognize gender roles.

Tayib, who was living in Europe until four years ago, is the representative of the Zoroastrians at the Kurdistan Region’s ministry of religious affairs. She assumed the position after Zoroastrians received official recognition in 2015.

Zoroastrianism is an ancient religion which grew to popularity in present-day Iran and some parts of Iraq and then spread to the rest of the world.

Zoroastrians are best known by their religious motto “Good Thoughts, Good Acts, and Good Deeds”. They believe in one God, that the world is divided between the good, represented by fire or light in their rituals, and the devil, and a day of judgement.

Many of its adherents in Kurdistan believe the founder of the religion, Zoroaster or Zardasht as it is called in Kurdish, was a Kurd and he spoke a variation of Kurdish language called Avesta.

Kurdish Zoroastrians believe that the Kurdish dialect of Hawrami, still widely spoken in Kurdish areas in Iran and Iraq, has many similarities to the ancient language.

Hawramis believe that the language has remained largely intact due to the limited contact they had with the outside world. Their mountainous areas kept them safe from foreign rule for much of their history.

Tayib said Avesta language is faced with extinction. She does not speak the language but, in an effort to preserve the language, she and members of her congregation are studying it.

Tayib could not give an exact number of Zoroastrians in the Kurdistan Region as some followers do so only secret for “their own safety or social considerations,” but she estimated it could be in the hundreds of thousands.

A 2006 report by the New York Times put the number of Zoroastrians worldwide at 190,000 at the most.

Copyright ©, respective author or news agency, rudaw.net

Filed Under: Articles Tagged With: Kurdish, temple, Zoroastrian

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