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Armenian Cemetery In Cyprus In Pitiable State


Yervant1

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What moral right do we have, to ask Azeries to respect our cemetaries, when we don't respect it ourselves.

 

Out of all establishments, our church which is supposed to be the bastion of our faith and culture is the culprit who is desecrating the 300 years old cemetary.

 

 

ARMENIAN CEMETERY IN CYPRUS IN PITIABLE STATE

By Georges der Parthogh

 

AZG Armenian Daily

04/04/2006

 

The Nicosia Municipality has threatened to sue the Armenian Church

for failing to implement a court order demanding that the 300-year-old

Armenian cemetery be restored.

 

Doctor Vahakn Atarayan, Armenian representative in the Cypriot

Parliament, said that eleven months have passed since the municipality

asked the church to bring the historic 18th century cemetery back to

its pre-bulldozer state, but nobody is dealing with the problem and

nothing is being done.

 

Last April demolition work at the. cemetery was halted after the

Ministry of the Interior took out an injunction to stop the work.

 

The Armenian Prelature had started digging up the graves, as part of

its plane to put remains together in a new communal pit adjacent to

the small chapel, and convert the area to a park, while rumors were

ripe that it would be sold to real estate developers.

 

The late Bedros Kalaydjian who was the Armenian Representative at the

time had deplored the decision of the Church and had said that "the

demolition was carried out in an unprofessional manner and caused a

lot of grief and an insult to the memory of the deceased."

 

Berge Kouyoumdjian is a concerned member of the community. In a letter

to the local press he said: "It is almost the first anniversary of

the cemetery's cynical desecration, and I remember that soon after

this outrage, the municipality delivered an order with a time limit of

one month, instructing those responsible to restore this sacred site,

repair the chapel and clean up the area.

 

Nearly a year on, this order remains ignored and. the cemetery is

now in an even worse state. There is rubbish all over and the area

looks like a landfill site. Shards of human bone crushed by the

bulldozers and mixed into the soil are scattered on the surface so

that it is impossible not to walk on them. Historic headstones lie

in a heap and exhumed bones fill black rubbish bags in the derelict

chapel. When will we, the descendants of over 400 souls buried there,

see restoration work started on this European heritage site?

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