Swallows dart around the dome of the 10th century Armenian church rising from an island set amid the turquoise waters of Lake Van.
Tombstones with ancient Christian inscriptions and crosses lie scattered among the weeds in the garden, where day-trippers picnic in the shade of almond trees and sunbathe after a swim.
The serenity of the scene belies a traumatic past that haunts Turkey and Armenia to this day.
PHOTO: REUTERS
For Armenians across the world, the church in eastern Anatolia is a testimony to centuries of persecution, deportations and mass killings at the hands of Ottoman forces.
Muslim Turkey and Christian Armenia are bitterly divided over their troubled history and the border between them remains closed despite US-brokered peace accords signed last year.
Today, the Church of the Holy Cross, which is now a state museum, has become a symbol of a tortuous reconciliation process as Turkey prepares to open the site on Sept. 19 for a one-day religious service that could become an annual event.
“This church is very important for Armenians, not only in Turkey, but across the world,” said Archbishop Aram Ateshian, a spiritual leader from Turkey’s surviving Armenian community. “For decades, we could not say mass or have a religious service because it was forbidden by the government.”
With its conical dome, frescoes depicting saints and carvings of biblical scenes on its red stone outer walls, the church is considered one of the finest architectural examples that remain of the ancient Armenian civilization in Turkey, erased a century ago in what many regard as genocide.
Its scenic location, at the center of the volcanic, salt lake, ringed year-round by snow-capped mountains, would make a natural draw for tourists to this poverty stricken region.
Large numbers of Armenians lived in the nearby city of Van and in eastern Anatolia until they were expelled by Ottoman forces in 1915 during the chaotic break-up of the empire.
At one point, there were 2,000 Armenian churches in Turkey, but only 45 are left standing. The rest, Armenian officials say, were destroyed, ransacked or turned into mosques or schools.
The church reopened in 2007 as a museum, following a US$1.5 million renovation by the Turkish government. Despite pleas by church officials, a cross was not allowed on the church.
Munir Karaloglu, governor of Van Province, said a cross will be placed on the dome before the mass and will remain there.
Church officials say the holy site in Akdamar, built between 915 and 921 AD, has been appropriated by the Turkish state. Because it is a public building, expressions of religious belief are not tolerated under Turkey’s strict secular constitution.
Often criticized in the West for its treatment of Christian minorities, Ankara has promoted the mass as proof of commitment to tolerance. Critics say the one-day service is a public relations campaign to improve EU candidate’s Turkey’s image.
Efforts at normalizing ties suffered a setback in April when Yerevan froze ratification of an accord after months of deadlock from both sides. It would establish ties and called for an “impartial and scientific” investigation into the 1915 events.
Armenia, backed by many historians and world parliaments, says some 1.5 million Armenians died during the upheavals that accompanied WWI and labels the events as genocide. Ankara rejects the term genocide and says large numbers of both Christian Armenians and Muslim Turks were killed.
A Turkish foreign ministry official hoped the church mass would improve the atmosphere around the peace process.
“It will be nice if this step contributes to the normalization process between Turkey and Armenia but we have to be realistic,” the official said. “The border between Armenia and Turkey is closed due to political reasons.”
Turkey closed the border in 1993 in solidarity with Muslim ally Azerbaijan in its war over Nagorno-Karabakh with Armenia.
Ankara says progress with Armenia is impossible until Armenia and Azerbaijan settle the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.The Armenian Foreign Ministry did not comment on the mass, and officials in Yerevan said they have not received any invitation, but Armenian church officials saw hopeful signs of a change in attitude toward their faith.
A fire caused by a burst gas pipe yesterday spread to several homes and sent a fireball soaring into the sky outside Malaysia’s largest city, injuring more than 100 people. The towering inferno near a gas station in Putra Heights outside Kuala Lumpur was visible for kilometers and lasted for several hours. It happened during a public holiday as Muslims, who are the majority in Malaysia, celebrate the second day of Eid al-Fitr. National oil company Petronas said the fire started at one of its gas pipelines at 8:10am and the affected pipeline was later isolated. Disaster management officials said shutting the
US Vice President J.D. Vance on Friday accused Denmark of not having done enough to protect Greenland, when he visited the strategically placed and resource-rich Danish territory coveted by US President Donald Trump. Vance made his comment during a trip to the Pituffik Space Base in northwestern Greenland, a visit viewed by Copenhagen and Nuuk as a provocation. “Our message to Denmark is very simple: You have not done a good job by the people of Greenland,” Vance told a news conference. “You have under-invested in the people of Greenland, and you have under-invested in the security architecture of this
UNREST: The authorities in Turkey arrested 13 Turkish journalists in five days, deported a BBC correspondent and on Thursday arrested a reporter from Sweden Waving flags and chanting slogans, many hundreds of thousands of anti-government demonstrators on Saturday rallied in Istanbul, Turkey, in defence of democracy after the arrest of Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu which sparked Turkey’s worst street unrest in more than a decade. Under a cloudless blue sky, vast crowds gathered in Maltepe on the Asian side of Turkey’s biggest city on the eve of the Eid al-Fitr celebration which started yesterday, marking the end of Ramadan. Ozgur Ozel, chairman of the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), which organized the rally, said there were 2.2 million people in the crowd, but
JOINT EFFORTS: The three countries have been strengthening an alliance and pressing efforts to bolster deterrence against Beijing’s assertiveness in the South China Sea The US, Japan and the Philippines on Friday staged joint naval drills to boost crisis readiness off a disputed South China Sea shoal as a Chinese military ship kept watch from a distance. The Chinese frigate attempted to get closer to the waters, where the warships and aircraft from the three allied countries were undertaking maneuvers off the Scarborough Shoal — also known as Huangyan Island (黃岩島) and claimed by Taiwan and China — in an unsettling moment but it was warned by a Philippine frigate by radio and kept away. “There was a time when they attempted to maneuver
RSS