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HISTORIC ARMENIAN CHURCH DESTROYED BY ISLAMISTS IN SYRIA
Christian Today
Nov 12 2014
Published 11 November 2014 | Cath Martin
A historic church in Syria dedicated to the one and a half million
Armenians murdered by the Turks in 1915 has reportedly been reduced
to rubble by Islamists.
According to The Independent, the destruction of the Armenian church
in the eastern city of Deir el-Zour appears to have been committed
by Jabhat al-Nusra rebels.
Irreplaceable archives dating back to 1841 - shortly before the
church's 1846 construction - and which included documents on the
Armenian genocide have been reduced to ashes.
In a further act of insult, the bones of hundreds of genocide victims
have reportedly been removed from the crypt and strewn on the street
outside.
Overseer of the Armenian church in the Deir el-Zour district,
Monsignor Antranik Ayvazian, told The Independent's Robert Fisk that
the militants tried to use the church as leverage, promising not to
destroy the priceless archive if he in return acknowledged them as
the legislative authority in the area.
He refused and they set about destroying the church.
"I refused," he said. "And after I refused, they destroyed all our
papers and endowments. The only genocide victims' bones left were
further north in the Murgada sanctuary and I buried them before I
left. They destroyed the church there, but now if I could go back,
I don't even know if I could find where I put the bones."
He only found out about the church's destruction when a secret photo
showing the ruined building was smuggled to him.
It is not only the fact that the bones of genocide victims were stored
at the church; its place in Armenian history is poignant because the
priest at the time, Father Petrus Terzibashian, was killed by Turks
in front of the congregation, says Msr Ayvazian.
"Then they threw his body into the Euphrates," he said. "This time
when the Islamists came, our priest there fled for his life."
http://www.christiantoday.com/article/historic.armenian.church.destroyed.by.islamists.in .syria/42901.htm
Christian Today
Nov 12 2014
Published 11 November 2014 | Cath Martin
A historic church in Syria dedicated to the one and a half million
Armenians murdered by the Turks in 1915 has reportedly been reduced
to rubble by Islamists.
According to The Independent, the destruction of the Armenian church
in the eastern city of Deir el-Zour appears to have been committed
by Jabhat al-Nusra rebels.
Irreplaceable archives dating back to 1841 - shortly before the
church's 1846 construction - and which included documents on the
Armenian genocide have been reduced to ashes.
In a further act of insult, the bones of hundreds of genocide victims
have reportedly been removed from the crypt and strewn on the street
outside.
Overseer of the Armenian church in the Deir el-Zour district,
Monsignor Antranik Ayvazian, told The Independent's Robert Fisk that
the militants tried to use the church as leverage, promising not to
destroy the priceless archive if he in return acknowledged them as
the legislative authority in the area.
He refused and they set about destroying the church.
"I refused," he said. "And after I refused, they destroyed all our
papers and endowments. The only genocide victims' bones left were
further north in the Murgada sanctuary and I buried them before I
left. They destroyed the church there, but now if I could go back,
I don't even know if I could find where I put the bones."
He only found out about the church's destruction when a secret photo
showing the ruined building was smuggled to him.
It is not only the fact that the bones of genocide victims were stored
at the church; its place in Armenian history is poignant because the
priest at the time, Father Petrus Terzibashian, was killed by Turks
in front of the congregation, says Msr Ayvazian.
"Then they threw his body into the Euphrates," he said. "This time
when the Islamists came, our priest there fled for his life."
http://www.christiantoday.com/article/historic.armenian.church.destroyed.by.islamists.in .syria/42901.htm