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AKHTALA CHURCH CONTROVERSY: ANNOUNCED RE-CONSECRATION OF HOLY VIRGIN DELAYED
Gayane Lazarian
ArmeniaNow reporter
23.09.10
St. Astvatsatsin Church, Akhtala, Lori province
A medieval church in northern Armenia set for re-consecration last
Sunday is still awaiting the sacred ceremony after clergy unexpectedly
decided to delay it.
A church official said the delay of the widely advertised event was
due to the absence of the supreme patriarch from the country and that
they wished to hold the ceremony only in his presence.
Mother See of Holy Etchmiadzin Information System Director Fr. Vahram
Melikyan also denied talk that such a development might have been
caused by reaction from clergy in Georgia where many, as it appears,
believe the church is a Georgian one.
The 13th-century Surb Astvatsatsin (Holy Virgin) Church in the small
industrial town of Akhtala, which is near the border with Georgia,
had not functioned for nearly two centuries. Religious rituals resumed
there only after it got an appointed pastor in January.
But like its counterpart on the Lake Van island of Akhtamar, across
what is now the Turkish-Armenian border, Holy Virgin, too, remains
without a cross. Its dome is also damaged.
(The row over the absence of this Christian symbol on the dome of the
Turkish-renovated Armenian Surb Khach Church at Akhtamar marred what
had been planned by Turkey as a huge display of tolerance towards
its Armenian Christian minority during the one-off mass last Sunday.)
Besides the re-consecration of the church, the scheduled events in
Akhtala for September 19 included the unveiling of a Wedding Band
sculpture and the installation of information panels outside the
church, placed by the Armenian Monuments Awareness Project. The day's
festivities were supposed to end in a Barbecue Contest and award for
the best barbecue (pork, veal, beef, etc).
All the ancillary events completed, the expected re-consecration and
a liturgy did not happen. The town's authorities failed to provide
any explanations as to why the event did not happen.
Fr. Vahram told ArmeniaNow that the re-consecration of the Church did
not take place because His Holiness Karekin II, the Supreme Patriarch
and Catholicos of All Armenians, was outside the country.
"We wished to perform the re-consecration of the Holy Virgin Church
not in the absence of the Catholicos, but in his presence," said the
priest. "I think it will happen in the very near future."
Reacting to the common talk that the Holy Virgin Church is a Georgian
church and that its re-consecration was not done under pressure from
the Georgian side, Fr. Vahram said: "The church is Armenian and this
is just idle talk."
Before the Akhtala church began to perform religious rites again,
people in the town of some 3,000 would go to nearby towns and villages
to have church weddings or baptism ceremonies there.
The Holy Virgin church's pastor Fr. Vigen says that the dome is
damaged and that's why it has no cross. The dome of the church was
destroyed in an earthquake in the Middle Ages.
"We have no surviving sketches to see what kind it was," says Fr.
Vigen. "But we do have preserved stone pieces, from which architects
are now trying to project how the dome would have looked. I cannot
say when the construction work will start, because it requires great
expenditures."
The rest of the Sunday events went on according to plan.
A Wedding Band sculpture was unveiled in Akhtala and information
panels were installed presenting the history and structure fortress
of Akhtala, with its monastery complex consisting of three churches,
a belfry, the hall and stone service rooms, and the rich medieval
frescoes found inside the main church St. Astvatsatsin (Holy Virgin).
Celebrations in Akhtala ended in a barbecue contest, in which about
20 chefs as well as representatives of Armenia's ethnic minorities
took part. Residents of different villages also participated in the
contest by making barbecue and treating guests.
Akhtala, a birthplace of copper, silver and gold, had mostly Greek
miners working and eventually settling in the area, creating
once a wide Greek community. The mines were operated by French
industrialists. So Akhtala was virtually a place with multicultural
environment. It was symbolic that the representatives of ethnic
minorities living in the region today participated in the event by
presenting an ethnic dance or song.
Chairman of the "Development and Preservation of Armenian Culinary
Traditions" NGO and Chef at Ararat Hall Restaurant Sedrak Mamulyan,
who heads the Contest Committee, says that participants were awarded
in eight categories. The Jewish community was recognized as winner
in the contest of representatives of Armenia's Jewish, Greek and
Ukrainian communities.
A few hundred guests turned out in anticipation of the significant
event. According to some of them, the event was overall very poorly
organized.
"An organizational committee for holding the contest had been set up at
the Ministry of Economy. And next year organizational problems will be
solved at a higher level, there will also be participants from abroad,
and most importantly, the contest will have an international nature,"
says Mamulyan.
From: A. Papazian
Gayane Lazarian
ArmeniaNow reporter
23.09.10
St. Astvatsatsin Church, Akhtala, Lori province
A medieval church in northern Armenia set for re-consecration last
Sunday is still awaiting the sacred ceremony after clergy unexpectedly
decided to delay it.
A church official said the delay of the widely advertised event was
due to the absence of the supreme patriarch from the country and that
they wished to hold the ceremony only in his presence.
Mother See of Holy Etchmiadzin Information System Director Fr. Vahram
Melikyan also denied talk that such a development might have been
caused by reaction from clergy in Georgia where many, as it appears,
believe the church is a Georgian one.
The 13th-century Surb Astvatsatsin (Holy Virgin) Church in the small
industrial town of Akhtala, which is near the border with Georgia,
had not functioned for nearly two centuries. Religious rituals resumed
there only after it got an appointed pastor in January.
But like its counterpart on the Lake Van island of Akhtamar, across
what is now the Turkish-Armenian border, Holy Virgin, too, remains
without a cross. Its dome is also damaged.
(The row over the absence of this Christian symbol on the dome of the
Turkish-renovated Armenian Surb Khach Church at Akhtamar marred what
had been planned by Turkey as a huge display of tolerance towards
its Armenian Christian minority during the one-off mass last Sunday.)
Besides the re-consecration of the church, the scheduled events in
Akhtala for September 19 included the unveiling of a Wedding Band
sculpture and the installation of information panels outside the
church, placed by the Armenian Monuments Awareness Project. The day's
festivities were supposed to end in a Barbecue Contest and award for
the best barbecue (pork, veal, beef, etc).
All the ancillary events completed, the expected re-consecration and
a liturgy did not happen. The town's authorities failed to provide
any explanations as to why the event did not happen.
Fr. Vahram told ArmeniaNow that the re-consecration of the Church did
not take place because His Holiness Karekin II, the Supreme Patriarch
and Catholicos of All Armenians, was outside the country.
"We wished to perform the re-consecration of the Holy Virgin Church
not in the absence of the Catholicos, but in his presence," said the
priest. "I think it will happen in the very near future."
Reacting to the common talk that the Holy Virgin Church is a Georgian
church and that its re-consecration was not done under pressure from
the Georgian side, Fr. Vahram said: "The church is Armenian and this
is just idle talk."
Before the Akhtala church began to perform religious rites again,
people in the town of some 3,000 would go to nearby towns and villages
to have church weddings or baptism ceremonies there.
The Holy Virgin church's pastor Fr. Vigen says that the dome is
damaged and that's why it has no cross. The dome of the church was
destroyed in an earthquake in the Middle Ages.
"We have no surviving sketches to see what kind it was," says Fr.
Vigen. "But we do have preserved stone pieces, from which architects
are now trying to project how the dome would have looked. I cannot
say when the construction work will start, because it requires great
expenditures."
The rest of the Sunday events went on according to plan.
A Wedding Band sculpture was unveiled in Akhtala and information
panels were installed presenting the history and structure fortress
of Akhtala, with its monastery complex consisting of three churches,
a belfry, the hall and stone service rooms, and the rich medieval
frescoes found inside the main church St. Astvatsatsin (Holy Virgin).
Celebrations in Akhtala ended in a barbecue contest, in which about
20 chefs as well as representatives of Armenia's ethnic minorities
took part. Residents of different villages also participated in the
contest by making barbecue and treating guests.
Akhtala, a birthplace of copper, silver and gold, had mostly Greek
miners working and eventually settling in the area, creating
once a wide Greek community. The mines were operated by French
industrialists. So Akhtala was virtually a place with multicultural
environment. It was symbolic that the representatives of ethnic
minorities living in the region today participated in the event by
presenting an ethnic dance or song.
Chairman of the "Development and Preservation of Armenian Culinary
Traditions" NGO and Chef at Ararat Hall Restaurant Sedrak Mamulyan,
who heads the Contest Committee, says that participants were awarded
in eight categories. The Jewish community was recognized as winner
in the contest of representatives of Armenia's Jewish, Greek and
Ukrainian communities.
A few hundred guests turned out in anticipation of the significant
event. According to some of them, the event was overall very poorly
organized.
"An organizational committee for holding the contest had been set up at
the Ministry of Economy. And next year organizational problems will be
solved at a higher level, there will also be participants from abroad,
and most importantly, the contest will have an international nature,"
says Mamulyan.
From: A. Papazian