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Sourb Khach mass started: Only 350 foreign visitors attend the ceremony
13:28 - 19.09.10
At 11 a.m. Van time Archbishop Aram Ateshyan, the Deputy Patriarch of
the Armenian Patriarchate of Constantinople, started serving the mass
at Sourb Khach Church (Saint Cross) on Akhtamar Island in Lake Van,
Eastern Turkey.
It comes almost a century later after Armenians were eventually
deported from their homeland in Western Armenia in 1915 and death
marched to the Syrian desert of Der ez-Zor by the Ottoman troops.
Only 55 people are in the church during the service, while the rest
are following the ceremony on the two big monitors set up in the yard.
According to local Turkish daily Hurriyet, only 750 Istanbul-based
Armenians have arrived in the island and about 300-400 guests from
abroad.
Some 50 policemen are guarding the area surrounding the church, while
500 are inspecting the road to the levee and the levee itself.
The event is being covered by some 118 journalists from Turkey and
some 27 from abroad.
Tert.am
From: A. Papazian
13:28 - 19.09.10
At 11 a.m. Van time Archbishop Aram Ateshyan, the Deputy Patriarch of
the Armenian Patriarchate of Constantinople, started serving the mass
at Sourb Khach Church (Saint Cross) on Akhtamar Island in Lake Van,
Eastern Turkey.
It comes almost a century later after Armenians were eventually
deported from their homeland in Western Armenia in 1915 and death
marched to the Syrian desert of Der ez-Zor by the Ottoman troops.
Only 55 people are in the church during the service, while the rest
are following the ceremony on the two big monitors set up in the yard.
According to local Turkish daily Hurriyet, only 750 Istanbul-based
Armenians have arrived in the island and about 300-400 guests from
abroad.
Some 50 policemen are guarding the area surrounding the church, while
500 are inspecting the road to the levee and the levee itself.
The event is being covered by some 118 journalists from Turkey and
some 27 from abroad.
Tert.am
From: A. Papazian