Teach genocide!
Teach genocide!Teach genocide! Kurdistan and Hayastan - Hand in Hand: Kurdish village leader in the Van province restores Armenian church

Monday, August 6, 2007

Kurdish village leader in the Van province restores Armenian church

Van province

Earlier this year, in March the famous Akdamar church on Akdamar island in northern Kurdistan was restored to a museum, this is one of the churches that almost survived the genocide and the mass killings of Armenians and other christian groups by the young-Turks in 1915.

Akdamar church is placed in a island in the middle of the lake of Van

3 days ago, the Kurdish leader of Yerekdagi in the province of Van where the Holy Cross Church of complex is situated, purchased construction materials for repairing the roof of the church built in the 13th century.

The headman of Yerekdagi has turned to tourists who visit Van, including Armenians with a request to assign money for paying workers.
Before the year of 1914, there were almost 100 Armenian monasteries and more than 500 churches in the Van province.

One of the Armenian monasteries in northern Kurdistan, the monastery was neglected in the last 10 years and requires urgent restoration.

A eyewitness and survivor memories from the Armenian genocide, Siranoush Simon Toutounjian´s testimony :

Van had seven churches. There were also Catholics and Protestants, who had their schools and hospitals. But the Gregorian Orthodox Armenians were much more. We used to go to St. Astvadsadsin (Holy Virgin) Church.

In summer we went to the Varaga Monastery. It was a sacred place, and from different villages people came there. The Armenians gathered, sang and danced.

...Until 1915 we had political activists in Van as Vramian, Vahan Papazian, Artak Darbinian, Paramaz and Ishkhan. The Hnchaks could play a great role had they been able to keep secrets.
The future of the churches that remains is probably in great danger, the Turkish government has problem keeping promises and dont practise what they preach. An example is (according to an October 19th report by Bloomberg News) a church in Diyarbakir (Armenian: Dikgrangerd / Kurdish: Amêd) which was under the Turkish government's official protection, was torn down by a construction firm. The article, written by Mark Bentley, added that, "builder Kerem Emre used stones from the demolished church in the province of Diyarbekir to lay the foundations for a mosque" in its place.
Read more "ANCA CONDEMNS TURKEY'S DEMOLITION OF ARMENIAN CHURCH IN DIKRANAGERD"

The Armenian Church has traditionally maintained two patriarchates: one in Jerusalem and another in Istanbul. In Jerusalem, the Armenian Patriarchate is the guardian of the Holy Places in the possession of the Armenians, the Armenians should rather relie their patriarchates then the turkish government.

6 comments:

Allen said...

The future of both Armenians and Kurds is tied together. If only they would unite Turkey and Azerbaijan would not stand a chance and we would both be free from their grips.

I am curious what other kurds in kurdistan think about this.
As well as what they think about Armenian rights to historic Armenia...I mean some of historic armenia is now populated heavily with kurds and if im not mistaken van is considered a part of kurdistan by many kurds. Any info would be great. Thanks

Anonymous said...

Yeah north of kurdistan used to belong to us 2000 years ago in 90 years but wilsonian hayastan (west armenia) is not considered by armenians in generally as their native homeland (except the ultra nationalists).

Even if some Armenians want the wilsonian hayastan, we are TOTALLY outnumbered and we have a kind of state of our own to take care of (wich is corrupt etc) and we should work on building up it instead of thinking of conquesting land from others!

I hope that all of our western armenian brothers and sisters will move back home and help us with rebuilding our country!

nice blog by the way thanks

Amos said...

Thanks for your comments. Interesting blog you have here. Good luck.

Kurdistan and Hayastan said...

Love the fact that a dialogue has been created Allen and Artinian.

Thank you Amos for reading!

Anonymous said...

i think Van has always been part of armenian historical highlands (but after the genocide) more kurd have begun to settled in there, what do u think?

Anonymous said...

i agree that armenians and kurds should work together in our common struggle but one thing that i have never understood is why there is a debate over what van was historically. there is no question about it. Van was built by armenians and was the capital of Armenian kingdoms thousands of years before kurds migrated to anatolia from persia, as well as many other ancient armenian cities such as ararat, kars ani, bitlis, etc., now considered by kurds to be apart of kurdistan. I dont find this to be just. If we are to work together for commonwealth we must accept facts and history.