Yervant1 Posted November 11, 2014 Report Share Posted November 11, 2014 TURKEY ACCUSED OF TURNING BLIND EYE TO DESTRUCTION OF CHRISTIAN SITESIrish TimesNov 10 2014Ancient relics of Christian past are slowly being lost to historyby Stephen StarrThe light of day was quickly fading as a farmer gestured to follow himthrough a doorway into the stone outhouse. Inside, in the darkness,there are sacks of animal food and dust-covered machinery.In the light from a camera's flash hints of eastern Turkey's Christianpast tentatively show themselves: a cross chiselled into an arch onan ancient wall; an apse painted with the faint, pale, blue colourassociated with the Virgin Mary during Byzantine times.Here in the Pontic mountains, named after the community of Greeksstationed on the Black Sea coast from 700BC until their massacre andexpulsion in the early 20th century, ancient relics of a Christianpast are slowly and in some cases deliberately being lost to history.In some cases, Turkey's ruling AK Party, a moderate Islamist movementpopular with millions of conservative Turks, has been charged withturning a blind eye to the destruction of Christian sites.The church-turned-cattle shed is close to what remains of Varzahanmonastery, 9km north of the provincial capital Bayburt, and reportedlythe scene of massacres of Armenians by Turks in the 1700s. Scenesand stories such as these are not uncommon in an area once home tocountless Christian communities.About two million Armenian and Greek Christians were killed ordeported from eastern Turkey during and after the first World War. A1923 convention ratifying the exchange of about 1.5 million GreekChristians living in Turkey and a half million Muslims in Greeceprecipitated the loss of Christian culture.A 160km drive north in the Black Sea city of Trabzon, Hagia Sofia,a church for much of the last 800 years and a museum from 1964 untillast year, today has its splendid, centuries-old Christian frescosconcealed. It is now a mosque.The local tourist board is catering to an audience with little interestin its history. Two coach-loads of Arab athletes arrive to pray.Outside, construction is under way to build trinket shops, accordingto a security guard. At the entrance, adverts for hajj to Meccaand donations for Gaza are pinned against the door among otherArabic-language literature.In Hagia Sofia's prayers section all iconography has been covered byroll-up blinds and screens with a small section of Christian frescosvisible only in the tourist bay. Fresco faces have been destroyedwholesale and four plaques with the names of the prophet Mohammad'sclosest confidants have been freshly attached to the church's ancientpillars.In 2012 Turkey's General Directorate of Pious Foundations - aninstitution headed by Turkey's deputy prime minister - filed alawsuit against the ministry of culture to return the museum to its15th-century mosque status, which it was for several decades duringthe 20th century, even though a local judge has since found theconversion to be illegal.It's not just buildings that are under threat. In some cases,Christians have been too. In 2006 an Italian Catholic priest wasmurdered by a 16-year-old as he knelt in prayer inside the SantaMaria church in Trabzon. The boy reportedly shouted "Allahu Akbar"(God is greatest) before pulling the trigger. Today the church issaid to have a congregation of one.A year later workers at a bible publishing company had their throatsslit in the eastern Turkish city of Malatya.In Istanbul's Karakoy district, a EURO 525 million port developmentis under construction next to a group of six churches of varyingdenominations. Some fear the churches may be levelled."You can't say there's a problem about targeting Christians in easternTurkey," said Rober Koptas, the editor-in-chief of Armenian newspaperAgos, "because they don't exist [in eastern Turkey] any more. Themain reason was the genocide [of 1915]."Critics say Turkey's Christian leaders are silent on the government'slaissez-faire attitude towards the country's historic cultural sites.Some Christians were upset the Armenian Patriarchate was unable tosend a representative to say Mass at the Easter Sunday reopening ofone of the Middle East's largest churches in south Turkey last year.The Armenian Patriarchate in Istanbul and the Santa Maria churchin Trabzon could not be reached for comment while the EcumenicalPatriarchate of Constantinople in Istanbul wouldn't immediatelyprovide comment.Back in northeast Turkey, the Sumela monastery built into a mountainhigh above Trabzon is today a museum. Every inch of the Rock Chapel'swalls are covered in frescos depicting a variety of stories andscenes from the Bible. But many symbols of Christianity - crossescarved into mountain stone and frescos - have been destroyed. Thisstunning enclave is a monastery in name only. No one lives here now.Historian Ismail Kose, a professor at Erciyes University in Kayseri,says most of the damage to the frescos took place in the late 17thcentury and again when the Ottoman empire disintegrated in the 1910s."You have to remember this was a time of war, during and after WorldWar I. Acts targeting religious symbols took place all over theregion," he said.Kose says it is "impossible" that Sumela monastery, one of the region'smost stunning feats of construction engineering, could go the wayof Trabzon's Hagia Sofia and be converted into a mosque because itholds no historical ties to Islam.The same cannot be said for Istanbul's iconic Hagia Sofia, once achurch and now a museum. There is growing movement to turn it backinto a mosque.More than buildings, other cultural riches rooted in Christianity arebeing consigned to history. "As few as 5,000 people speak the dialect[spoken by Turkey's Pontic Greeks] but linguists believe that it isthe closest, living language to ancient Greek and could provide anunprecedented insight into the language of Socrates and Plato andhow it evolved," wrote a 2012 entry on the Black Sea Pontic GreekCommunity blog.The reuse of ancient religious buildings for contemporary lifeis neither new nor unique to Turkey. But the government's refusalto protect important links to the past is something that troublesmany Turks."Of course the government is responsible," said Koptas. "Though itis renovating some churches in Turkey, this is the mentality of thegovernment. It has Islamism in its mind-set."http://www.irishtimes.com/news/world/europe/turkey-accused-of-turning-blind-eye-to-destruction-of-christian-sites-1.1994442 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Yervant1 Posted March 27, 2017 Author Report Share Posted March 27, 2017 ARMENIAN HERITAGEThe Armenian church in the village of Kermouch in the region of Ourfa degraded by the treasure hunters of "Armenian gold" http://www.armenews.com/IMG/arton139558-400x300.jpg The Armenian church in the village of Kermouch (Gamurach in Armenian) in the region of Ourfa in Turkey which was five years ago one of the tourist centers of the region continues to degrade. According to the Turkish site Urfanatik, the Armenian church in the village of Kermouch (Gamurg), built in the 19th century by seven brothers, shows signs of collapse on certain parts. According to Mehmet Güzel, a specialist in the historical monuments of the Ourfa region, the Armenian church in Kermouch was used by the Apostolic Armenians until 1915. "After 1915 the village of Kermouch was entrusted to a commander of the Hamidiés regiment, Syoumer *****.http://www.armenews.com/IMG/gisher2-480x232-480x232.jpgThe Armenian church in the village of Kermouch in the region of Ourfa degraded by the treasure hunters of "Armenian gold"Presently the village is in the hands of the descendants of Syoumer *****. If this church were renovated, it would be a great asset for tourism in Ourfa. We want it to be renovated and reopened to worship, " said Mehmet Güzel. One of the village's inhabitants, Hussein Aslan, said that the Armenian church on the threshold of collapse is regularly visited by treasure hunters who seek in its walls and in its soil "Armenian gold" . An activity that became a "Turkish national sport" animated by the search for the supposedly hidden treasures of the Armenians during the genocide of 1915.Krikor AmirzayanSunday 26 March 2017,Krikor Amirzayan © armenews.comhttp://www.armenews.com/article.php3?id_article=139558 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Yervant1 Posted October 28, 2017 Author Report Share Posted October 28, 2017 PanArmenian, ArmeniaOct 27 2017 http://media.pn.am/media/issue/248/126/photo/248126.jpgOctober 27, 2017 - 17:21 AMT Three Armenian churches on verge of full destruction in Turkey's Van Three Armenian churches in Turkey's Van province are on the verge of full destruction, Gazetekarinci.com reports.Artsvaberd in the town of Ercis of Van, in particular, now has a lot of holes, the walls and khachkars have been destroyed, while the monastery itself has turned into a dump.Built in the 7-8th centuries, Artsvaberd was one of the greatest monasteries in the entire province and has suffered multiple attacks by Turks and Kurds.Also, the church of St Gevorg and the Surb Astvatsatsin monastery in the village of Artamet are on the brink of destruction due to attacks by treasure hunters and the local residents' negligence.Prior to the Genocide, 700 Armenians lived in the village, and a mosque was built near the St Gevorg church in thee 1990s.http://panarmenian.net/m/eng/news/248126 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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