Fr Benedict Kiely, founder of Nasarean.org, a charity helping persecuted Christians, makes a powerful appeal for Christian Armenia, at risk of being wiped off the map by the Islamic nation of Azerbaijan, which is waging a brazen cultural genocide to complete the physical Armenian genocide of 1915 to 1917.
Pleading for Permanence
The Turkic Azerbaijanis seek to eradicate all signs of the ancient Christian history of Armenia
Fr Benedict Kiely, The European Conservative, Sept 8, 2024
When the forces of the Islamic State (ISIS) swept through Syria and Iraq, beginning in 2014, they immediately began destroying both churches and the Christian symbols within them. Visiting both Syria and Iraq many times, I have seen every Cross in a church defaced, statues broken, and icons scratched and damaged. There was a reason, for example, that ISIS used churches in Mosul as torture centres, prisons, and often places for target practice. It was not only to blaspheme and insult their true purpose, to gloat over the defeated Christian populace, but also to deny the building ever had a sacred use. There was far worse to see. In many places, ISIS destroyed Christian graveyards, something I saw with my own eyes. They not only destroyed the graveyards; they dug up the bodies of the Christian ancestors and threw them away. If there are no graveyards, it means the people were never there. The policy was not merely cultural vandalism; it was deliberate and planned.
Scruton wrote that “sacred spaces are steeped in the hope and sufferings of those who have fought for them. And they belong to others who are yet to be.” To eradicate hallowed ground not only denies the reality of an historical presence but also attempts to ensure that those who are “yet to be” will never return.
This policy is happening in another part of the world at this very moment. This time, not the work of a revolutionary force, but the work of a nation feted across the globe, especially because it has seemingly unlimited amounts of oil and gas. The oldest Christian nation on earth, Armenia, is suffering an historical and cultural genocide to accompany not only the physical genocide of 1915 to 1917 but the forced expulsion of all the Armenian citizens from the territory of Artsakh, or Nagorno-Karabakh, in 2023. In every area that the Islamic nation of Azerbaijan takes from Armenia, churches, monasteries, and religious signs and symbols have been destroyed. Graveyards are desecrated. The famous Armenian khachkar’s, the decorated stone Cross so typical of Armenian culture, some from at least the 9th century, have been broken, moved, or vandalised. Following the example of their Turkish overlords, who accompanied the Armenian genocide of the last century with a similar policy of the destruction of memory and presence, the Turkic Azerbaijanis are seeking to eradicate all signs of the ancient Christian history of Armenia, present since the 4th century. It is, in fact, the prevailing policy and the absurd fantasy of the government of Azerbaijan that the very state of Armenia has never existed, which is precisely why all historical signs must be eliminated. Meanwhile, the world watches and fills the oil tanks and pays the petrodollars...
Across the West, there is a destruction of memory, a denial of the past, exemplified by the refusal to acknowledge the foundational role of Christianity in the European Constitution; there is a reason why the European Commission is probably the most secular institution in Europe. Although churches, as they rapidly empty, are not being bulldozed, or at least not many, they are being used for other purposes, increasingly as mosques in Britain.
For those of us who care, this increased denial of people and place, their history and culture, as a weapon of war, must be fought vigorously. The defence of Christian Armenia is an imperative for all who claim the name of Christian. As in the Middle East, they belong where they have always been, where they deserve to be. As Roger Scruton noted, “By bearing the imprint of former generations, a corner of the earth pleads for permanence.”
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