'Pleading for Permanence' - The Plight of the Armenian Christians

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.”

Read the full article here.

Support Fr Benedict Kiely and Nazarean.org here...

Raymond Ibrahim: "The genocide of Armenians at the hands of Turkic peoples has reached a new level"

Several genocide watchdog organizations are accusing Azerbaijan of committing genocide against the 120,000 Armenians living in Nagorno-Karabakh.

Read the below article on the horrific and multilayered background story of this genocide, and contact your congressman and senator to express support for the Armenians.

Starvation: ‘The Invisible Genocide Weapon’

by Raymond Ibrahim, originally published at the Gatestone Institute

The thousand-year-old genocide of Armenians at the hands of Turkic peoples has reached a new level.

Several watchdog organizations—including the Association of Genocide Scholars,  Genocide Watch, and the Lemkin Institute for Genocide Prevention—are accusing Azerbaijan of committing genocide against the 120,000 Armenians living in Nagorno-Karabakh.  Historically known as Artsakh, this ancient Armenian region was annexed by and brought under Azerbaijani rule in 2020.

Modern day hostilities between Armenia, an ancient nation and the first to adopt Christianity, and Azerbaijan, a Muslim nation that was created in 1918, began in September 2020, when Azerbaijan launched a war to claim Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh).  Although it had been Armenian for over two thousand years, and still remains 90% Armenian, after the dissolution of the USSR, the “border makers” granted it to Azerbaijan, hence the constant warring over this region. (See “15 Artsakh War Myths Perpetuated By Mainstream Media.”)

Once the September 2020 war began, Turkey quickly joined its Azerbaijani co-religionists against Armenia, though the dispute clearly did not concern it.  It dispatched  sharia-enforcing “jihadist groups” from Syria and Libya—including the pro-Muslim Brotherhood Hamza Division, which once kept naked women chained and imprisoned—to terrorize and slaughter the Armenians.

One of these captured mercenaries later confessed that he was “promised a monthly $2,000 payment for fighting against ‘kafirs’ in Artsakh, and an extra 100 dollar[s] for each beheaded kafir.” (Kafir, often translated as “infidel,” is Arabic for any non-Muslim who fails to submit to Islam, which makes them de facto enemies.)

All these Muslim groups committed massive atrocities (see here and here), including by raping an Armenian female soldier and mother of three, before hacking off all four of her limbs, gouging her eyes, and mockingly sticking one of her severed fingers inside her private parts.

The war ended in November 2020, with Azerbaijan claiming a significant portion of Artsakh.

Then, on December 12, 2022, Azerbaijan sealed off the humanitarian Lachin Corridor—the only route between Artsakh and the outside world.  A recent report by Dutch journalist, Sonja Dahlmans, summarizes the situation since:

Remembering the Orthodox Holocaust

The Armenian Genocide is commemorated on April 24 each year, the Pontian Greek Genocide on May 19. Together with the Assyrians and other Christians under Ottoman rule, the combined total of Orthodox and Eastern Christians massacred by the Muslim Turks from 1894 to 1923 reached 3.6 million.

Still from the film 'Ravished Armenia', based on a survivor's eyewitness account.

While it is essential to remember the Armenian Genocide and to work to stop the Islamic genocide against Christians in the Middle East and Africa being committed today, we must recall that the term 'genocide' is a secular one.

As Christians we commemorate those killed not so much as 'genocide victims', but as Martyrs — Witnesses for Christ — for they were persecuted and killed by the Turkish Muslims primarily because they were Christians, who refused to renounce their faith in Jesus Christ. As the Lord tells us, "You will be hated by all for My Name's sake. But he who endures to the end shall be saved" (MT 10:22), and "The hour is coming when those who kill you will think they offer service to God" (JN 16:2).

Therefore, the Armenian, Assyrian and Greek Martyrs from a hundred years ago are a sign for us today, who are living through a new age of mass Christian martyrdom, which may even result in the extinction of Christians from huge areas in the Middle East and Africa. They call out to us to be zealous and faithful to Jesus Christ to the end, for He has conquered the devil and death itself. They and all the New Martyrs of the 21st Century join to call us to deep repentance, and they admonish us to live fully the Christian life.

'Now one cannot be a half-hearted Christian, but only entirely or not at all.' 

~ Hieromonk Seraphim Rose (†1982) ~

For further reading:

May 19, Pontian Greek Genocide Remembrance Day - Records show a minimum 350,000 Pontian Greeks exterminated through systematic slaughter by Turkish troops, deportations involving death marches, starvation in labor and concentration camps, rapes and individual killings. Entire villages and cities were devastated, while thousands were forced to flee to neighboring countries.

The Orthodox Christian Holocaust: 1894 to the Present - The most significant Orthodox Christian resource on this subject, compiled by the Very Rev. Archimandrite Nektarios Serfes. Includes summaries of genocide against 3.6 million Armenians and Greeks by Turkish Muslims from 1894-1923.

Armenian Church canonizes victims of Ottoman genocide

Islam, via both Turkey and ISIS, threatens 5,000-year-old Assyrian culture with annihilation

Christian Genocide in the Middle East and Public Apathy in America

'Sacrificing and Sacrificed for the Faith' — Martyrdom a Hundred Years Ago and Today

Much more on my Armenian Genocide Resource Page...

Islam, via both Turkey and ISIS, threatens 5,000-year-old Assyrian culture with annihilation

• "There is a great parallel between 1915 and what is going on in the Middle East today — in terms of destruction of non-Muslim civilizations and the continuity of Islamic jihad..."
• "Before 1915, the population of the territory that is now Turkey was about 15 million, about 4.5 million of which was Christian (nearly a third). Today... the approximate population of Turkey is 80 million, but there are only around 120,000 Christians, less than 1% of the population.
• "What some people in Turkey proudly say is, 'Elhamdulillah [thank Allah], 99% of Turkey is Muslim.' They brag and boast about it. It should actually put them to shame; we know very well how they made it happen...
• "They murdered more than 300,000 Assyrians and forced almost another 300,000 to be exposed to assimilation in many countries across the world."

See also my special resource page on the Armenian-Assyrian Genocide.

5000-year-old Assyrian Culture Facing Devastation

By Uzay Bulut, Gatestone Institute via AINA, November 29, 2015

Left: A memorial in France commemorating the 1915 Assyrian Genocide in Turkey. Right: An Islamic State member destroys a Christian tombstone in Mosul, Iraq, in April 2015.

The recent invasions and massacres committed by the Islamic State (ISIS) and Al-Qaeda terrorists in Iraq and Syria have brought a persecuted but mostly forgotten people to the attention of the world: the Assyrians.

The Assyrians, a native people of Mesopotamia, have been exposed to massacres before -- throughout history, in fact.

Due to these campaigns of extermination, the demographic character of the region has been changed greatly.

Before 1915, the population of the territory that is now Turkey was about 15 million, about 4.5 million of which was Christian (nearly a third). Today, one can hardly even talk of a Christian minority. The approximate population of Turkey is 80 million, but there are only around 120,000 Christians, less than 1% of the population.

In 1915, a slaughter of minorities took place, the purpose of which was apparently to "Turkify" and Islamize Anatolia into a country with one language, one flag, one religion and one nation. To achieve this objective, all non-Turkish communities -- Armenians, Assyrians, Greeks, Jews, Yezidis, Kurds and others -- were targeted.

But there was a difference between Christians and non-Christians. Non-Christian minorities were to be assimilated; Christians were to be exterminated.

According to the founder and the president of the Assyrian Genocide and Research Center (Seyfo Center)[1], Sabri Atman, there are links between the massacre of the Assyrians and the current massacres of Christians in the Middle East:

100 Years of Silence

Of the 2.6 million Greeks of Ottoman Turkey in 1914, over 700,000 additional Thracian and Anatolian Greeks were slaughtered, bringing the total Greek deaths to over one million.

Related: The Armenian Genocide

by Thea Halo, Author of Not Even My Name, and A Lid for Every Pot, painter, former WBAI news correspondent.
Huffington Post — May 20, 2015
h/t AINA

In the struggle between denial and silence, silence wins hands down. That is, silence wins out over denial if the genocide of a people is to be complete. For almost 100 years, Pontic Greeks have mourned the loss of the 353,000 fathers, mothers, grandparents, children, friends and community members who were slaughtered outright, or who died agonizing deaths on long death marches to expulsion from 1916 to 1923. My mother was among them. Of the 2.6 million Greeks of Ottoman Turkey in 1914, over 700,000 additional Thracian and Anatolian Greeks were slaughtered, bringing the total Greek deaths to over one million.

Although the Pontic Greeks had settled on the southern shores and in the mountains along the Black Sea since 875 B.C., and other Greeks had settled in Anatolia since 1200 B.C., over 2,000 years before the first Turkish tribes invaded, today it's difficult to find anyone who has heard of the Pontians or Anatolian Greeks, as if they never existed? Ditto for the Assyrians who had settlements in Asia minor dating back four thousand years before the genocide that took the lives of at least 275,000 Assyrians, more than half their population. As with the Pontic Greeks, until recently, it was rare to find anyone who knew Assyrians still existed in the modern world.

Armenian Muslims Living in Turkey are Returning to Christianity

“Descendants of the Armenians who were forcibly converted to the faith of Prophet Muhammad have started realizing the significance of their nation’s history, and now they are returning by the dozens to their ancestral faith in Christ the Savior.”

Pravoslavie — May 21, 2015

(Istanbul, May 19, 2015)   

Armenians living in Turkey – descendants of the Christians who embraced Islam – are returning to the faith of their fathers in great numbers, reports the Linga news portal.

According to the famous Agos Armenian weekly newspaper published in Istanbul, the cases of conversion of Armenian Muslims to Christianity, which are becoming more frequent, indicate that they (Armenians) have preserved their ancestors’ faith deep in their memory.

Metropolitan Hilarion: Terrorism And Extremism in the Middle East Continue Growing And Spreading Like a Plague

An illuminating discussion of the deadly threat of Islam to Christians and the civilized world, without ever specifically mentioning Islam. 

Highlights include:

• "If the whole world now fails to unite against this new terrible epidemic, the consequences may be irretrievable..."
• "Each country should be concerned by it because sooner or later it will come to its borders too."
• "Russia is a country which will cope... But Western Europe is not at all ready for it. People are too well-off there, too relaxed."

Pravmir — May 16, 2015

On May 2, 2015, Metropolitan Hilarion as presenter of the Church and the World TV program had as his guest the chairman of the Imperial Orthodox Palestine Society Sergey Stepashin.

Metropolitan Hilarion: Good afternoon, dear brothers and sisters. Christ is Risen! In these Paschal days, the mental eyes of many Orthodox faithful are directed to the Holy Land, the places where our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ lived on earth. Today we will speak about the Holy Land, the Middle East and Palestine with the chairman of the Imperial Orthodox Palestine Society Sergey Stepashin. Good afternoon, Sergey Vadimovich.

S. Stepashin: Good afternoon, Your Eminence.

Metropolitan Hilarion: Christ is risen!

S. Stepashin: He is truly risen!

Among the main tasks of the Imperial Palestine Society is a serious, thorough and sometimes very dangerous work in the Middle East. I may start with Syria as the most problematic region today, as this country is very close to us in its Christian traditions. Today all the peoples in Syria are going through a very difficult period and Christians have proved to be in the most terrible situation.

Recently we have marked the centenary of the Armenian genocide. You know that the Armenian Church has canonized over a million citizens who were killed in the genocide. I believe today we have a full right to say that what is happening in the Middle East, too, is a Christian genocide.

What is an Armenian Christian?

An introduction to the First Nation to adopt Christianity, in 301 A.D.

See also: 

• Armenian Genocide Resource Page
• What is an Assyrian Christian?

What is an Armenian Christian?

by Anton C. Vrame, Ph.D.

Director, Department of Religious Education

Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America

April 25, 2015

The Armenian Genocide Memorial and Museum

On April 24, 1915, Ottoman authorities arrested 250 Armenian intellectuals and community leaders in Constantinople. They were sent to Chankri and Ayash (cities in central Anatolia), where they were later slain. For this reason, April 24 marks the beginning of the Armenian Genocide, where it is estimated between 1 and 1.5 million people were killed (http://www.armenian-genocide.org/). Many American cities, especially those with sizeable Armenian populations such as Boston, will be marking the 100th anniversary with prayer and vigil, but also the continued effort to have these mass killings recognized around the world as the first genocide of the 20^th century (http://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2015/04/22/centennial-genocide-sharpens-grief-for-local-armenians/wDHsRDW0LPfGJco5vBBPiO/story.html). 

Today (April 24, 2015) in Yerevan, Armenia, the Armenian Church canonized the victims as saints.

The Ottomans also singled out other minority communities at this time, including the Greek Orthodox and Assyrian Christian. Many Greek Orthodox readers of this article may trace their roots to Anatolia and the population exchanges in the 1920s between Greece and Turkey.

Armenia was the first nation to adopt Christianity, in 301 AD, but Tradition holds that St. Thaddeus, one of the twelve Apostles of Christ, preached there in the first century. The Armenian Church did not accept the decisions of the Council of Chalcedon, 451, (the Fourth Ecumenical Council) and subsequent councils. This early schism in Christianity has yet to be reconciled, although great progress has been made in the last fifty years.

What do Armenian Christians believe? Space prohibits a detailed examination, but some brief statements (From Welcome to the Armenian Church, published by St. Vartan Press of the Diocese of the Armenian Church of America, Eastern), we find the following:

Raymond Ibrahim: 'The Islamic Genocide of Christians: Past and Present'

"There is no denying that religion — or in this context, the age-old specter of Muslim persecution of Christian minorities — was fundamental to the genocide of Armenians, Greeks, and Assyrians... This is daily demonstrated throughout the Islamic world today, where Muslim governments, mobs, and jihadis persecute Christian minorities — minorities who share the same ethnicity, language, and culture as Muslims, but not religion."

by Raymond Ibrahim — April 26, 2015

Last Friday, April 24, we remembered how exactly 100 years ago the last historic Muslim caliphate, the Ottoman Empire, tried to cleanse its empire of Christian minorities — Armenians, Assyrians, and Greeks — even as we stand by watching as the new caliphate, the Islamic State, resumes the genocide.

And in both cases, the atrocities were and are being committed in the name of Islam.

In November, 1914, during WWI, the Ottoman caliphate issued a fatwa, or Islamic decree, proclaiming it a “sacred duty” for all Muslims to “massacre” infidels — specifically naming the “Christian men” of the Triple Entente, “the enemies of Islam” — with promises of great rewards in the afterlife.

The same Koran verses that the Islamic State and other jihadi outfits regularly quote permeated the Ottoman fatwa, including:  “Slay the idolaters wherever you find them — seize them, besiege them, and be ready to ambush them” (9:5) and “O you who have believed! do not take the Jews and the Christians for friends; they are but friends of each other; and whoever among you takes them for a friend, then surely he is one of them” (5:51) — and several other verses that form the Islamic doctrine of Loyalty and Enmity.

Pictures from the Ceremony held at the Armenian Genocide Memorial Complex

Courtesy of OCP Media, April 24, 2015

Many more photos and links to additional sources at OCP Media.

'Sacrificing and Sacrificed for the Faith' — Martyrdom a Hundred Years Ago and Today

"...The history of the Christians in the Middle East is a story whose roots go back to creation, to the account in the Book of Genesis about the first crime committed in history, Cain’s murder of his brother Abel..."

Here is a striking theological look at Islam's unending war against Christians. It is clear that symbolically, Righteous Abel represents the humble, pious and forgiving Christians, who offer "a more excellent sacrifice" than the degenerate Cain, who represents Islam and Muslims, who "attack true worship and brotherhood." In Metropolitan Siluan's words,

"Cain irremediably attacks both existential dimensions of his life, the vertical and horizontal when he attacks true worship and brotherhood. On the other hand, in his person Abel saves, “offering up and offered by faith,” true worship and sacrifice to God. Furthermore, God accepts Abel’s offering and receives him as a sacrifice."

Related:

• Centennial of the Armenian Genocide — Special Resource Page
• The Orthodox Christian Holocaust: 1894 to the Present
• Second Anniversary of the Kidnapping of Archbishops Paul and John
• Armenian Church canonizes victims of Ottoman genocide

by Metropolitan Siluan of Buenos Aires and All Argentina
Notes on Arab Orthodoxy via Pravmir — April 26, 2015

“By faith Abel offered to God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain, through which he obtained witness that he was righteous, God testifying of his gifts; and through it he being dead still speaks.” (Hebrews 11:4)

The Christian East continues in the footsteps of its Master, sacrificing and in turn being sacrificed upon the altar of martyrdom, “A disciple is not above his teacher, nor a servant above his master” (Matthew 10:24). This offering-martyrdom is the cup from which many of our brothers have drank and currently drink, confirming the words of the Lord to James and John on the threshold of His passion, “You will indeed drink My cup” (Matthew 20:23).

It is clear that the history of the Christians in the Middle East is at once painful and glorious. It is painful on account of the great pain and suffering that they experience on earth and glorious on account of the dignity and grace that they receive in heaven. It is a story whose roots go back to creation, to the account in the Book of Genesis about the first crime committed in history, Cain’s murder of his brother Abel (Genesis 4:8). From his point of view, Cain sacrifices on the altar of his degeneracy God and his brother. Thus, Cain irremediably attacks both existential dimensions of his life, the vertical and horizontal when he attacks true worship and brotherhood. 

On the other hand, in his person Abel saves, “offering up and offered by faith”, true worship and sacrifice to God. Furthermore, God accepts Abel’s offering and receives him as a sacrifice. Later, when he recalls this episode, the Apostle Paul highlights Abel’s faith and its impact even until today: “By faith Abel offered to God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain, through which he obtained witness that he was righteous, God testifying of his gifts; and through it he being dead still speaks.” (Hebrews 11:4)

Today the voice of Abel echoes loudly as the Christians of the East in general and the Middle East in particular commemorate the atrocities perpetrated against their communities at the end of the Ottoman Empire, from 1915 onward. According to historians, a policy of methodical extermination, without precedent in history, was carried out at the hands of the Turks, causing the martyrdom of some five million Christians – Assyrians, Chaldeans, Syriacs, Armenians and Orthodox: men, women and children. 

Churches in Turkey on the Verge of Extinction

"Turkey... has largely succeeded in destroying the entire Christian cultural heritage of Asia Minor."

Related: 

• Qur’an read inside Hagia Sophia for the first time in 85 years
• Ninth Hagia Sophia Church converted into mosque
• Muslim Prayers at Hagia Sophia: A Sign Calling Us to Repent

by Uzay Bulut

Gatestone Institute via Raymond Ibrahim — April 21, 2015

While Eastern Orthodox Christians recently celebrated their Easter holy week, a historic church in Istanbul — the once magnificent Christian city of Constantinople — is witnessing yet another abuse at the hands of its current authorities.

“The historic Istanbul cathedral and museum, Hagia Sophia, witnessed its first Quran recitation under its roof after 85 years Saturday,” reported the state-run Anatolian News Agency of Turkey. “The Religious Affairs Directorate launched the exhibition “Love of Prophet,” as part of commemorations of the birth of Islamic Prophet Muhammad.”

Even though Christians are a tiny minority in Turkey today, Christianity has a long history in Asia Minor, the birthplace of many Christian Apostles and Saints, including Paul of Tarsus, Timothy, Nicholas of Myra, and Polycarp of Smyrna.

All of the first seven Ecumenical Councils were held in what is today Turkey. Two out of the five centers (Patriarchates) of the ancient Pentarchy — Constantinople (Istanbul) and Antioch (Antakya) — are also situated there. Antioch was the place where, for the first time, the followers of Jesus were called “Christians.”

Turkey is also home to the Seven Churches of Asia, where were sent the Revelations to John. During the centuries that followed, countless churches were established throughout the region.

One of them, Hagia Sophia, was once the grandest cathedral in the Christian world — until the fall of Constantinople to the Ottomans on May 29, 1453, followed by a three days of unbridled pillage.[1]

Hagia Sophia was not exempt. Pillagers made their way to the Hagia Sophia and battered down its doors. Trapped in the church, congregants and refugees became spoils to be divided among the Ottoman invaders.

Pictures of Armenian Genocide Centennial Rallies Throughout the World

Photographic coverage of global commemorations of the 100th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide.

Visit our special Armenian Genocide Resource Page...

Flags of the victims of the genocide:

Armenian, Assyrian, Greek (L to R)

AINA — April 25, 2015

"We have made a clean sweep of the Armenians and Assyrians of Azerbaijan" -- Those were the words of Djevdet Bey, the governor of Van Province in Ottoman Turkey, who on April 24, 1915 lead 20,000 Turkish soldiers and 10,000 Kurdish irregulars in the opening act of the genocide of Assyrians, Armenians and Greeks.

Between 1915 and 1918 750,000 Assyrians (75%), 500,000 Greeks and 1.5 million Armenians were killed by Ottoman Turks and Kurds in a genocide that aimed at and nearly succeeded in destroying the Christian communities in the Ottoman Empire.

Kurds acknowledge the Armenian Genocide and their role in it

Obama sides with the Turks who "have been trying to erase the genocide from history, shortly after they gave up trying to erase the Armenians from history."

Visit our special Armenian Genocide Resource Page...

by John Hayward, Breitbart News — April 24, 2015

Mourners at the Armenian Genocide Memorial Museum (REUTERS)

The hundredth anniversary of the Armenian genocide caused many world leaders to blink, notably President Barack Obama, who abandoned his old campaign promises–and fiery criticism of the Bush administration–by refusing to acknowledge it. Much of this moral cowardice emanates from Western politicians who wish to curry favor with the Turkish government. The Turks have been trying to erase the genocide from history, shortly after they gave up trying to erase the Armenians from history.

Kurdish leaders, however, have been frank in acknowledging the genocide, and the role their own people played as soldiers of the Ottoman Empire. Turkish journalist Uzay Bulut took a long look at the Kurdish recognition, and the desire of Turkish writers to break ranks with their government and acknowledge the past, for International Business Times.

Metropolitan Tikhon: The Kingdom of Heaven is attained by living the difficult and sacrificial way of the Cross

Here is a powerful and challenging 'word' on the centennial of the Armenian Genocide from His Beatitude, Metropolitan Tikhon of the OCA. His Beatitude's message reminds me of the famous quote from Alexandr Solzhenitsyn:

"It was only when I lay there on rotting prison straw that I sensed within myself the first stirrings of good. Gradually it was disclosed to me that the line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties either, but right through every human heart, and through all human hearts...  Even within hearts overwhelmed by evil, one small bridgehead of good is retained; and even in the best of all hearts, there remains a small corner of evil. 

… If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?”

For a related article, please see 'Let Us Forgive All, By The Resurrection'

Visit our special Armenian Genocide Resource Page...

_______

Metropolitan Tikhon addresses Global Forum on Armenian Genocide

OCA, Syosset NY — April 23, 2015

On Wednesday, April 22, 2015, His Beatitude, Metropolitan Tikhon, addressed the participants in the Global Forum on the Armenian Genocide in Yerevan, the Armenian capital. The text of his address appears below.

ADDRESS OF HIS BEATITUDE, METROPOLITAN TIKHON
GLOBAL FORUM ON ARMENIAN GENOCIDE
Yerevan, Armenia
April 22, 2015

Metropolitan Tikhon at far right.

Your Holinesses, Your Eminences, Your Graces, Reverend Fathers and Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,

On behalf of the Holy Synod of Bishops, the clergy and the faithful of the Orthodox Church in America, I wish to thank His Holiness, Patriarch Karekin II, for his kind invitation to participate in today’s Global Forum and tomorrow’s Canonization of the Victims of the Armenian Genocide. It is a blessing to be with so many brothers and sisters from diverse Churches and organizations for this important commemoration, which touches the hearts of all who would consider themselves human beings.

Armenian Church canonizes victims of Ottoman genocide

See the Facing Islam Armenian Genocide Resource Page.

Interfax via Pravmir — April 24, 2015

Yerevan, April 24, Interfax - The Armenian Apostolic Church canonized all Armenians murdered during the Armenian genocide in the Ottoman Empire a century ago.

Between 1 million and 1.5 million people were killed in the massacres, but the Armenian Church stated neither the number nor the names of those it canonized, calling the genocide collective martyrdom.

The canonization ceremony finished at 19:15 hours local time, symbolizing the year 1915, when the killings began.

Obama Breaks Promise on 100th Anniversary of Armenian Genocide

"It is no marvel that Obama denies the genocide of Armenian and other Christian minorities at the hands of Muslims from a century ago, when one considers that he denies the rampant Muslim persecution of Christians taking place under—and often because of—his leadership today."

by Raymond Ibrahim — April 23, 2015

Armenian Genocide protest, Times Square NYC, 2014.

As the world continues to look on in dismay at the barbaric atrocities committed against Christian minorities by the Islamic State—the self-proclaimed new “caliphate”—today, April 24, marks the genocide of Armenian and other Christian minorities by Turkey’s Islamic Ottoman Empire—the last caliphate.

Most American historians who have examined the question agree that what the Armenians experienced was a deliberate, calculated genocide:

More than one million Armenians perished as the result of execution, starvation, disease, the harsh environment, and physical abuse.  A people who lived in eastern Turkey for nearly 3,000 years [that is, 2,500 years before the Islamic Turks invaded and occupied Anatolia, now known as “Turkey”] lost its homeland and was profoundly decimated in the first large-scale genocide of the twentieth century.  At the beginning of 1915 there were some two million Armenians within Turkey; today there are fewer than 60,000.

One-and-a-half million Armenians were eradicated.  If early 20th century Turkey had the apparatuses and technology to execute in mass—such as 1940s Germany’s gas chambers—the entire Armenian population could well have been annihilated.

The atrocities suffered by Armenian and other Christian minorities are too long to list.  As occurs under the current caliphate—the Islamic State—the Muslims of the Ottoman caliphate abducted, raped, and slaughtered or sold countless Christian women and children on the Muslim slave markets.

100 bell rings worldwide symbolize Armenian Genocide centennial

OCP Media — April 23, 2015

The ceremony of canonization of the Armenian Genocide martyrs at the Mother See of Holy Etchmiadzin concluded at a symbolic hour, 19:15. Bells in all the Armenian churches (except for those in Turkey) rang for 100 times, symbolizing the centennial of the Armenian Genocide. A moment of silence was announced afterwards. Lord’s Prayer reading and performing the Armenian chant Surb-Surb in different corners of the world by various choirs concluded the ceremony.

It is noteworthy that many non-Armenian Christian churches across the globe joined the ceremony.

New Resource Page on Armenian Genocide

To commemorate the centennial of the Armenian Genocide, I have just posted a new page gathering together extensive resources and articles on the Armenian Genocide, its historic place within the wider Orthodox Holocaust of 1894-1923, and its importance for us today, who are living through a new era of Islamic genocide against Christians and mass Christian martyrdom throughout the Middle East and Africa.

The Armenian Genocide Page will continue to be updated over time with new articles and links. Please visit, use, and share widely.

Christian Genocide in the Middle East and Public Apathy in America: Looking Back on 2014 and Before

The question of lack of American care and response to genocide against Christians in the Middle East and Africa has been raised on this blog, as well as elsewhere. Timothy Furnish recently shared this excerpt from a piece by blogger Matt Walsh in which, as Tim puts it, Walsh "nails this -- NAILS it":

I’m sure there would be outrage of epic proportions if over 100 black Christians in Georgia were gunned down for their faith like they were in Africa just a few weeks ago. I’m sure that if black American Christians were persecuted, we would care. If Chinese Americans or Korean Americans or Arab Americans or any other kind of American Christians were killed for their beliefs, there would be marches in the street and candle light vigils outside their homes. But for the ones dying and suffering in silence far away from our borders? We have concern, yes. But do we have that deep, seething, righteous anger at the pit of our souls? Do we cry out for justice? Do we shed tears? Do we? It doesn’t seem like it, and I don’t know why.

In an early 2014 article by Michael Brendan Dougherty titled, 'The World’s Most Ancient Christian Communities are being Destroyed — and No One Cares', I was struck in particular by this brief quote, which also seems to "nail it":

“The victims are ‘too Christian’ to excite the Left, and ‘too foreign’ to excite the Right.” —French philosopher Regis Debray

I might amend Debray's observation to read that the Christian victims are "too Eastern" to excite American Protestant/Evangelical Christians to action.

It is precisely the deeply traditional, liturgical, Eastern form of Christianity which has been preserved in the Orthodox, Coptic, Assyrian and Chaldean communions which is under renewed attack by the forces of Islam, and which is simultaneously, for the most part, ignored by American Christians who, as a general rule, are so iconoclastic nowadays as to regard Eastern Christians as being somehow sub-Christian or even non-Christian altogether.  If you wish to explore my reasoning on this point, I invite you to read my article, 'Islam's Hatred of Holy Icons — and what that means for Persecuted Eastern Christians' from July 2013.

In any case, the apathy of Americans in general, and American Christians in particular, is part of the deeper meta-narrative revealing itself in our new era of Mass Christian Martyrdom. Dr. Kyrou's outstanding article below is a welcome historical analysis and stirring challenge to us all, and comprises part of this blog's coverage of the 100th Anniversary of the Armenian Genocide, and the Glorification of the Armenian Martyrs as Saints taking place this very day.


Christian Genocide in the Middle East and Public Apathy in America: Looking Back on 2014 and Before

by Dr. Alexandros K. Kyrou - January 14, 2015

Source: Hellenic American Leadership Council via Pravoslavie

One of the last diplomats to leave Smyrna after the Turks set the great Anatolian port city ablaze in September 1922 was the United States’ Consul General, George Horton. Reflecting on the carnage and depravity of the Turkish forces tasked by Mustafa Kemal to destroy Smyrna’s Greeks and every physical semblance of their three-millennial presence in the magnificent city on the western littoral of Asia Minor, Horton wrote that “one of the keenest impressions which I brought away from Smyrna was a feeling of shame that I belonged to the human race.” The shame that Horton expressed stemmed from his shock and disgust, both as a witness to the Turks’ genocidal frenzy and as a diplomat aware that several Western governments, including his own, had contributed to the horrors that took place in Smyrna.

'The Smyrna Catastrophe', by Vasilis Bottas

One of the chief reasons that Turkey escaped responsibility for its crimes against humanity was the complicity, albeit indirect, of several of the Western powers in those crimes.