In Memoriam of the 100th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide 1915-2015.
The approximately two million Armenians in the Ottoman Empire were more dispersed than those of the Russian Empire and Safavid Persia. They made a sizeable element in Constantinople, the coastal cities, and in Cilicia, the fertile region along the Mediterranean Sea, where an Armenian kingdom had held sway from the eleventh century through to 1375.Yet, despite this broad distribution, most Turkish Armenians still inhabited their historic plateau lands, Adana, Aintab, Baghesh, Bitlis, Edesia( Urfa, Edessa)Erznka(Erzinjan), Evdokia(Tokat),Hadjn,Karin, Erzerum), Kharpet (Kharput,Harput), Kesaria(Kaiseri ,Caesaria), Marash, Mush, Sivas (Sebastia),Van, and Zeitun forming the six vilayets (provinces).
Persian Armenia lay in the khanates of Erevan, Nakhijevan, and Kharabagh. In 1826-27 the Armenians lent military and political support to the Russians in anticipation not only of liberation from the rule of the Persians, but also of achieving a base for an autonomous Armenian state. In 1826, Archbishop Nerses Ashtaraketsi when primate of the Dioceses of Nor Nakhijevan and Besarabia (later Catholicos of All Armenian as Nerses V, Ashraraketsi Shahazizian,1843-57), in a famous ‘Appeal to the Armenian Nation’, reminded Armenians that the Russians were coming not in their own self-interest but for the peace, security ,and well-being of the Armenians. He asked Armenians, in the name of their glorious forefathers, for the sake of God and Christianity, not to spare either their goods or their lives for the success of the Russians. The Archbishop himself led a detachment of Armenians volunteers against the Persians.
From the Arab domination to the rise of the Armenian Bagratuni kingdom (640-884), freedom of religion was assured by a contemporary agreement between the Arabs and the Armenians cited by the ninth century Arab historian al-Baladhuri-
‘In the name of Allah, the compassionate, the merciful. This is a treaty of Habib ibn Maslamah with the Christians, Magians and Jews of Dabil (Dvin) including those present and absent, I have granted you safety for your lives, possessions, churches, places of worship, and city wall. ‘Thus you are safe and we are bound to fulfil our covenant, so long as you will fulfil yours and pay the poll tax and kharaj. Thereunto Allah is witness; and it suffices to have him as witness’
Two hundred years after the Ottoman Empire was founded on the ruins of the Byzantine Empire, the unification of the Armenian people was formally legitimated by the institution of the Armenian millet. In 1461, the Ottoman government invited Yovakim Bishop of Bursa (1461-78) to Constantinople and bestowed upon him the title of Patriarch, entrusting him with the ecclesiastical and civil government of all the Armenians living in the Ottoman Empire. The investiture, initially involving only the Armenians, was extended and every soon covered other ethno-religious groups: Copts, Syrians, Jacobites, and Ethiopians. Thus, along with the Greek patriarch, who looked after all the Chalcedonian Christian communities, there emerged the Armenian patriarch who represented all the non- Chalcedonian Christians. The millet was a fairly typical institution in the Ottoman Empire. It gave the ethno-religious minorities in the Empire, a juridical status and a specific form of organisation that on one hand sanctioned the difference between Armenians and Ottoman citizens, permitting non-parity and possible discrimination, therefore; and that, on the other, was a link and a bond that guaranteed a minimum of protection and representation within the state structure. The Armenians did not meet insuperable obstacles in preserving their national identity, and although some were constrained to embrace Islam and more were subjected to economic exploitation, they learned to live with their Muslim overlords and neighbours. This situation changed radically by the nineteenth century as a consequence of the gradual demise of the Ottoman Empire.
Since the emergence of the Ottoman Empire, over the years many Armenians had adopted the Turkish language [the entire Bible in Turkish in Armenian letters was available as early as 1842 ], culture, and Islam to escape their second-class status within the ethno-religious administrative system, the Ermeni millet. The Armenian Patriarchate had jurisdiction over all the Armenians of the Empire, except the Catholicate of Sis (Cilicia), Aght’amar, and Patriarchate of Jerusalem. In 1827 Sultan Mahmud II in a gesture of defiance against the Allied Powers banished the Catholic Armenians who were part of the Armenian millet from the capital. As a consequence thousands suffered, many perishing from cold and rigours of the journey. The Treaty of Andrianople (1820) provided not only for the return of the Catholic Armenians but also the right to have their own church and separate administration. By Imperial decree issued on 24th, 1831, the Armenian Catholics were granted independent status as a separate millet, and eventually raised to the status of Patriarchate on April 17th, 1834. Shortly later the Evangelical Armenians announced in July 1st, 1846, the formation of the First Evangelical Armenian Church of Constantinople. Those who chose to maintain their national religious identity were required to pay heavy taxes, comply with orders regarding the devshirme, the forced collection of Children to serve in the Ottoman janissary corps and submit to restrictions under imperial and religious laws.
Sultan Abdul Mejid (r.1839-61) responding to domestic and European pressures for structural reform, introduced the Tanzimat reforms in the Ottoman Empire, which consisted of the Hatt-i Sherif of Gulhane (Noble Rescript of the Rose Chamber) declared on November 3, 1838, followed by the Hatt-i-Hymayani ( Imperial Rescript ) on February 18,1856, in the aftermath of the Crimean War. Under these reforms, the sultan promised equality for Muslims and non Muslims regardless of sect and creed. His Muslim subjects, however, viewed the principal of equality before the law for non Muslims as a violation of ‘ Islamic law and tradition ’.In parallel, the sublime Porte in 1847 ratified the establishment of the Armenian spiritual Council (religious) and the Supreme council (laymen), both under the directorship of the Armenian patriarchate at Constantinople. In 1863 the government also issued an imperial decree ratifying the Armenian National Constitution [Ազգային Սահմանադրութիւն].
The thought of taking arms for self-defence was the last resort in the process of the Armenian cultural and political revival, with personal and collective emancipation being at the core of the movement. The example set by the Greeks and other Balkan peoples and their success in gaining freedom was inspiring, and the allegorical admonition of Archbishop Mkrtitch Khrimyan called Hayrik meaning Father (b.1892-d.1907 Armenian Patriarch of Constantinople from 1868-79 & Catholicos of All Armenians,1892-1907) to follow the path of armed struggle instead of continued petitions of supplication. Khrimyan Hayrik shortly after returning in deep despondency to Constantinople from the Berlin Congress of 1878, to which he had attended as head of the Armenian delegation, in the Armenian cathedral in the Kum Kapu he preached a memorable sermon filled with metaphors. He told his congregation the following parable-
« Պերլինի մեջ հոգեճաշ [requiem meal] հարիսա կցրվեին բոլոր հպատակ ազգերին,ինձի ղրկեցիք,որ հայերին ընկած մասը առնեմ բերեմ,ես ալ պտուկն առի ու վազեցի...Դուք ինձի շերեփի տեղ թուղթ տվիք ,այդ թղթի կտոր որչափ որ խոթեցի տաք հարիսային մեջ,թուղթ թացացավ ,լխկեցավ,մեջն ընկավ,ես ալ պարապ թողի,ետ եկա.մոռցա առաջուց մի քանի հատ զեյթունցի տանեի հետս, անոնք շերեփ ունեին,կարելի է ամանին տակեն ,քովերեն բան մը փրցունեին» In Berlin[Congress] requiem meal of harisa was being distributed to all the subjugated nations, you send me as well to take and bring to you the portion reserved for us Armenians and I took the pan and ran …You gave me in place of ladle a piece of paper ,and that piece of paper the more I dipped into the harisa, the wetter it got, eventually it crumbled, and I left it and returned empty handed …I forgot to take with me a couple of Zeituntsis, they had ladles, they could have scrapped the bottom of the pot, the sides and come away with something’.
The Balkan peoples had come to Berlin with their iron ladles (erkat’e sherep) and ate of the tasty harisa [oat and meat porridge] But the Armenians had only paper petitions, and when they timidly placed their paper ladle (t’ught’e sherep) into the harisa pot, the paper crumbled and the Armenians received nothing. Despite Khrimyan’s generally conservative disposition, his message came to be regarded by many as a revolutionary call to forge an ‘iron ladle’ through self- reliance and self-defence. In 1879 he resigned and returned to Van as primate of the diocese of Vaspurakan. There he encouraged the formation of several secret voluntary groups called ‘ Black Cross [Սեւ Խաչ] in Van, ‘In defence of the Homeland’[ Պաշտման Հայրենեաց] in Karin and several similar organisations for Evdokia and Marzvan. The Ottoman government deprived him from his post of primacy, recalled him to Constantinople and exiled him to Jerusalem, where he remained until 1892, when he was elected Catholicos of All Armenians. The Turkish government would not free him of his Turkish citizenship and exile. It took 13 months of intense Russian pressure the Turks relented and allowed him to leave Jerusalem for Armenia. Seventeen months after his election in 25th September, 1893 he was consecrated Catholicos of All Armenians on the Feast day of the Holy Cross of Varag.
The literature of witness has had a significant impact on our understanding of the 20th century. Bishop Grigor Balakian’s memoir Armenian Golgotha, belongs to this genre of literature. Grigor Balakian a graduate of the Theological Seminary of Armash, a priest and later a bishop in the Armenian Orthodox Church, was among the Armenian intellectuals rounded up on the night of April 24, 1915 and deported. He was one of the very few that survived the ordeal against all odds, who in his Armenia Golgotha brings together a survivor’s account, eyewitness testimony, historical background and context, and political analysis. In a crucial chapter, ‘Plan for the Extinction of the Armenians in Turkey’, Balakain gives us an eleven-point outline of the Young Turks’ ‘final solution’, which remains an invaluable source for our understanding of the unfolding events of 1914-18.
As Balakian reveals, the CUP[ Ittihad ve Terakki, the Committee of Union and Progress, the ruling government of the Ottoman empire in 1915] ‘Law of Deportation’ and the confiscation of wealth (Temporary Law of Confiscation and Expropriation) resulted in organised, as well as ad hoc acts of plunder and theft of Armenian property. Balakian makes clear that deportation ‘was synonymous with murder’ and that the ‘relocation” of Armenians was merely a charade – as the Constantinople post-war courts-martial trials would confirm from Turkish testimony.
The absorption of Armenians into Islamic Turkish life through forced conversion and abduction is a recurrent theme of the genocidal process. In a moving scene in the chapter ‘Gazbel to Hajin’ Balakain tells the story of him sitting at a dinner table with a family of Islamized Armenians who beg him to bless their table give them Holy Communion, and hear their confessions. CUP’s pan Turkic ideology – its advocacy of homogeneous Turkey, free of Christian minorities especially Greeks, Assyrians, and Armenians – was not only a racist and xenophobic platform but a motivating factor in the final solution for the ‘Armenian Question’ which emerged out of the much wider ‘Eastern Question’. Balakian hears German soldiers referring to Armenians as ‘Christian Jews’ and ‘bloodsucking usurers of the Turkish people’. Such remarks demonstrate the ideological relationship Germans and Turks were forging in their shared view of Armenians, to whom the Germans extended and applied anti-Semitic notions. He observes that Turkish government officials often justified their violence against all Christians as ‘just retribution’ for their dominance in Turkey’s economic life, characterising Armenian Christians as ‘ferocious leeches’.
In 1828 Eastern Armenia came under the rule of Tzarist imperial Russia. To consolidate its power over Armenia, in 1836 Tsar Nicholas I instituted the Polozhenie (Statute), which restricted the activities of the Armenian Church in political matters and required that the Catholicosate at Ejmiadsin conduct its relations with the outside world through the Russian ministry of foreign affairs. Russian authorities greatly appreciated the role of the church in Armenian community life and sought to utilize its influence to promote and protect Russian interests in the region. By 1885, in its six dioceses of Russia (Erevan, Karabagh, Tbilisi, Shemakh, Astrakhan, and New Nakhijevan) and in the region of Kars, the Armenian Church controlled some 330 schools, 247 of which were for boys and 83 for girls. In 1903 the tsarist government decided to curtail the dominant socioeconomic position of the Armenian Church. In 1903 an Imperial decree ordered the transfer and control and administration of all church properties, both movable and immovable, to the Ministry of Agriculture and Public Domains and to the Ministry of the Interior. In this act the Armenians in the homeland and in the diaspora saw clearly the intention of the Russian authorities to undermine their cultural and religious autonomy. The mass active resistance, occurring at the same time as the outbreak of the 1905 Russian revolution, forced the tsarist regime to reconsider its policies in its effort to stabilise the situation in the Transcaucasia and annulled the decree and the Armenians were allowed to reopen their church schools which had reached 34, 845.
The destruction of the church’s religious and cultural stewardship
‘Armenia is our victim’, David Lloyd George
David Lloyd George described Armenia as a land ‘soaked with the blood of innocents’, and declared that it was one of countries which would never be restored to the blasting tyranny of the Turk’. Lloyd George was one of the prominent representatives of British imperialist diplomacy, who sacrificed the Armenian question on the sacrificial altar of imperialism. After retiring from politics had the courage to confess the truth ‘If it was not for our unholy interference – he wrote in his memoirs,-the majority of Armenians in compliance with the demands of the Treaty of San Stefano in 1878 would have passed under Russian protection. He admits ‘Armenia is our victim’ and that ‘Armenia was sacrificed on the altar of the victory created by us’. British policy had fatal consequences and led to the inevitable massacres of Armenians in 1895-97 and 1909, and 1915.We gave the Turks the possibility of implementing their heinous crime’.
As usual the clergy received first attention. ‘It is necessary’ read one of Talaat’s orders, ‘above all to work for the extermination of the Armenian clergy’. Thirty four high ranking celibate clergy were murdered along with 4,000 married priests. Among them were the primates of Erzerum, Trebizond, Ceasarea, Bitlis, Mush, Sert and Erznjan and there parish priests of every church and village. The Bishop of Diarbekir ‘was mutilated, drenched with alcohol, and burnt alive in the prison yard, in the midst of a carousing crowd of gendarmes, who even accompanied the scene with music’.According to the official ecclesiastical records attached by Archbishop Ormanian( 1896-1908) to his most influential work The Church of Armenia (1896-1908), there were 3,722,00 members of the Armenian Church before the first World War, with 100 dioceses,3,909 parishes and 3,788 churches, with one third of the Armenian population having been massacred ,forcibly converted to Islam, forty years later, in 1954,the membership of the Armenian Church reached and even slightly surpassed its former number. In the new statistics compiled by bishop D.Poladian,for the 3nd edition of Ormanian’s The church of Armenia the number of Armenian Church members appears as 3,674,757,but this time only with 26 dioceses,446 parishes and 417 churches. The Catholic Armenia church also was targeted. According to Catholic Armenian sources eight bishops, 106 priests, 55 nuns, and over 80.000 catholic Armenians.The Armenian Evangelical community also suffered great looses. In 1914, Armenian Evangelicals all over the world numbered about 70.000 of which approximately 51,000 lived in Turkey. The community had 137 organised churches with 82 ordained ministers and 97 preachers. In the aftermath of the genocide the Armenian Evangelicals counted 14,000 members, 31 churches with twenty five ordained ministers and thirteen preachers. American missionaries entered the Middle East in the early decades of the nineteenth century with the grandiose purpose to Christianise the nations of the Ottoman Empire. Their programmes among the native Armenians in the Ottoman Turkey had expanded to such an extent that at the turn of the century the Kharpert mission was considered the most successful not only in the Ottoman Empire but throughout the world.The missionaries from the United States, Germany and Great Britain achieved a great deal by encouraging the reform-minded element in the population, helped to raise expectations but they were unwilling or unable to support in the long run. In characterizing the policies of the European Powers in the Ottoman empire, the US minister, John A.G. Leishman, had complained: ‘ they do just enough to do harm, but not enough to do good’.
According to the statistics of the Armenian Patriarchate of Constantinople [A.Kh.Safrastyan, 'Կոստանդնուպոլսի Հայոց Պատրիարքարանի կողմից Թուրքիայի Արդարադատության եվ Դավանանքների Մինիստրության ներկայացված Հայկական եկեղեցիների եվ վանքերի ցուցակներն ու թաքրիրները[The statistical lists and documents of Armenian churches and monasteries compiled by the Armenian Patriarchate of Constantinople and presented to the Turkish Ministry of Justice and Faiths,1912-1913. In 1914 there were 210 monasteries and 700 monastic churches. Also, there were 1,639 churches outside the jurisdiction of the monasteries. More than a hundred monasteries were then enjoying full prosperity. These were not isolated for prayer alone, but according to a national tradition they were cultural, theological and creative centres. These were museums that housed manuscripts, stone crosses, reliquaries, countless objects of religious art. Among them were the monasteries of St Karapet (Saint John) and Monastery of Surb Arak’elots [Apostles, Kars ,930-43 ], Monastery of Varag or Yediklise, The Seven Churches (Van,1231). Aghtamar or Church of the Holy Cross, located on the island of Aght’amar,Van ( 915-and 921) Awag Vank’ or Monastery of Mount Sepouh (Erzinjan,13th century) and Karmir Vank in the vilayet of Erzerum, Monastery of St Narek not to mention St Nshan in Sivaz, Monastery and theological seminary in Armash near Contantinople, the Catholicate of Cilicia. In the multi volume studies on the monasteries of Vaspurakan, Taron, and Sebastia by Father Hamazasp Voskian published between 1940 and 1953 shed light on the existence of 573 monasteries in the provinces of Erzerum, Van and Bitlis, 13 others in the immediate vicinity of the city of Sivaz. Georg Mesrop estimates more than 200 the number of monasteries destroyed by the Turks during the thirty-year period preceding the war (1880-1914. In 1915 in their determination ‘to dispose the Armenian question once and for all’, the Turkish nationalists turned their fury on all that, by their mute presence, could bear witness in favour of the legitimate owners of the devastated regions. Ecclesiastical edifices, functioning as monuments of architecture, centres of art and learning were too eloquent. Consequently, they were pillaged and desecrated by bands imbued with racist propaganda, shelled or blown up, set on fire. Vahan, Papzian [Koms,1876-1973], Ottoman Deputy for Bitlis in the Young Turkish Parliament of Constantinople, quotes ‘Either no trace of Turks or no trace of Armenians should remain in this country’, declared by Djevdet Bey, Governor of Van. Lord Kinross a Turkish sympathiser to the extent of considering the Genocide of 1915 1918 as an ‘unfortunate political necessity’ in his book Within the Taurus,he speaks, however, with some regret, as a connoisseur, of the Armenian civilization, describes the ruins of Ani as totally abandoned ‘ the demolition of the crosses and of the walls with their frescoes is tragic’.The French explorer, F.Balsan, relates in his travels The Surprises of Kurdistan records the words of his escort Setke Bey ‘ the elimination of the Armenians was an urgent salutary work. Their very name must no longer have a sense, their memory, their monuments, their least traces must disappear. It is the order’ .Further on speaking of the Armenian Church of St Step’anos (St Stephen) of Deir (on the Turkish-Iranian border) relates this cynical comment of his escort and Turkish officers, ‘ It is the last Armenian church. I hope so, at least’. Then he translates the words of a Turkish subaltern ‘They do not despair of ‘finishing it off’, one of these days however hard its stones are. It is all a question of having explosives… Whenever they receive explosives, the church, too, receives its share’.
The Armenian has always had an inborn love genuine admiration for culture, science and the arts no way better demonstrated that in the following rare incident. In the forced flight towards the regions occupied by the Russians, in 1915, the Armenians of Mush carried with them, at the cost of indescribable sacrifices, the great Homiliary of Mush dated 1204 [Mat. Ms. no.7729], and the splendid wooden doors of the Apostles Monastery of Mush 1134.The former is now one of the glories of the Matenadaran and the latter is in The State History Museum of Armenia. The rescuing of this manuscript bears witness to the devoutness of the Armenians and their untiring efforts to save a manuscript which, according to the words frequently used by Armenian scribes, was regarded a ‘captive’ by infields and those who would rescued it ‘were worthy to receive their fitting reward’ wrote the scribe Kostandin Vahkatsi inn the colophon of his manuscript of the Four Gospels in 1413. The rescuing of a manuscript means more than building a church’. The Homiliary of Mush weighs 32k, measures 70.5 x 50cm and consisted of 660 parchment leaves. The Manuscript was kept in the Apostles Monastery in Mush. Two women fleeing from the massacres, in 1917 take refuge in the courtyard of the Apostle’s Monastery, and see the monumental manuscript and decide to rescue it. The manuscript being too heavy they split it into two halves taking one half with them and burying the second half with care .The ladies deliver the first half to the Armenian Ethnographic Society in Tiflis. Two years later in 1919 a Polish soldier serving in Baku sales the second half of the manuscript to the Armenian Benevolent Union. During the endless wanderings, the manuscript has lost some of its folios. From the 660 folios 601 have survived, while another 17 folios are in the Library of the Mkhitharists in Venice, and one folio in the Mkhitharist library in Vienna. In 1977 the Institute of Ancient manuscripts received two folios of the same manuscript from the State Lenin Library in Moscow. After 1915 Matenadaran received 1,545 manuscripts belonging to the monasteries in Lim, Ktuts, Aghtamar,Varag, Mush and Van .
Suren Kolanjyan in his series of articles devoted to the loss of Armenian manuscripts between 1894 -96, 1909 and 1915 gives a detailed account of the losses of Armenian religious manuscripts in his ‘Հայկական կոտորածները եվ մեր ձեռագրական կորուստները. Among the most significant collections destroyed for ever were the holdings of the monasteries of Holy Cross church of Sebastia (T.Gushakian,1923),Monastery of St Karapet of Ernjak ( M. Smbateants,1904), of the Monasteries of Vaspurakan ( E.Lalayan,1915),Karmir Vank of Ankiwrya ( (B.Kiwleserian,1957) and of the Monastry of Galatia ( B.Kiwleserian,1961)and of the Monastery of St Karapet and the Church of St Daniel (T.Palian,1963).
Among the British Library’s collection of Armenian manuscripts the most outstanding is a MS.Oriental 13654 , given the name the Awag Vank’ Gospels, bought in 1975 by the writer formerly belonging to the late Hagob Kevorkian of New York. This manuscript, consisting of 384 vellum folios measuring 37 x 29 cm is among the largest of ancient Armenian manuscripts. The manuscript was commissioned by Bishop Ter Sargis, as a memorial for their paternal uncle Ter Awetik,copied by the scribe Vardan in 1200-02 ,in the monastery of Awag Vank’ on Mount Sepuh in Erzinjan. The scribe Vardan is the same Vardan who copied the Mush Homiliary (Mat. MS.7729).The manuscript was brought to Constantinople by a group of refugees fleeing from persecution in August 1605 and presented to the Church of St Nicholas. There is a notice dated 1609 which states ‘ in this year, the year 1058[20 October 1608] severe ,enormous affliction came again upon thrice wretched nation which has seen much misery when a sever command came from the king[Sultan Ahmed I,1603-17] to drive us Christians from this town, saying “ Go to your own country”; and we do not know what the end will be. We have been trampled upon as “the mite of the streets” and the Lord has “abhorred his heritage greatly”. In the eighteenth century the manuscript became part of the collection of the Monastery Library at Galatia, and was catalogued by Babgen vardapet Kiwleserian between 1902 and 1907. During the massacres of 1915 the entire collection of the Galatia monastery was lost. The manuscript was among the Armenian manuscripts of Hagop Kevorkian Collection(New York), which sold in 1975,and was acquired by the British Library. As with many manuscripts, the memorial notices provide a commentary on the times, which the Armenian American writer Michael Arlan Jr. has likened to ‘ messages in bottles, messages from some long ago sea wreck, messages written by men’. For Armenians a manuscript is the ‘child in Zion’ through its colophon called hishatakaran, literally ‘ place of memory, which binds every Armenian to the saving powers of the Armenian Church and other members of the Armenian Christian congregation
The Catholicate of Cilicia.
By early summer 915,the Turkish ultra-nationalist dictatorial triumvirate ( Enver, Talaat and Mehmet Jemal Pashas) has succeeded in its systematic deportation and massacre of innocent Armenians in the provinces and Cilicia, while Catholicos Sahak Khapayan was busy dispatching appeals to Patriarch Zaven Eghiaian (1913-15;1919-22) in Constantinople and to foreign embassies beseeching them to intercede on behalf of the Armenian population and to stop the unprecedented atrocities against his constituency. On early morning hours of 24th April,1915 in a surprise move the Istanbul police and members of the Young Turks spread out over the city arresting several hundred leaders of the Armenian community across the entire spectrum of society (politicians, intellectuals, poets journalists, physicians, writers, teachers, primates and priests. The objective was to break the backbone of the Armenian community by removing its leaders, thus making the surviving Armenians powerless. After hiding the detainees in several jails in the city, the Turks transported them out of town and shot or stabbed to death each and every one at several locations in the country which was described as ‘German method - and Turkish execution’
Catholicos Sahak Khapaian on 19 July 1915 sent his last batch of appeals to Patriarch Zaven in Constantinople. His activities displeased the officials of the Ottoman government. They decided to silence him by sending him to a small town where he could cause no further embarrassment. Following the instruction of the Interior Ministry in Istanbul, the governor of Aleppo ordered Khapayan to leave ‘ quietly’ in two days for the city of Idlib located 35 miles southeast of Aleppo. Khapayan appealed to his old friend Mehmet Jemal Pasha, requesting that he be allowed to leave for Damascus or Jerusalem since his impoverished staff and retinue were deprived of their normal means of survival. On 15 October 1915 a curt telegram from Justice Minister Ibrahim Bey instructed the Catholicos to depart for Idlib, to which he complied. However, on 21 October, 1915, Catholicos Sahak decided to leave Idlib and depart for Jerusalem. He visited Aleppo one more time. In June 1916,the triumvirate devised a plan in which the hierarchy of the Armenian Church in the Ottoman Empire would completely sever its ties with the ‘Russian dominated Catholicos in Ejmiadsin’. Thus the Armenians would have only one head with his seat in the distant Jerusalem, accountable directly to the authority of the Turkish government. On 1 August, 1916 an official document prepared by a governmental committee, was signed off by Sultan Mehmet V, Rashidi ( 1909-18), the Grand Vizier, six ministers and Mustafa Bey. The new edict, entitled ‘Regulations for the Conduct of the Armenian Catholicate /Patriarchate’ promulgated the elimination of the Armenian millet and the abolition of the National Constitution of 1863. The document consisted of an introduction, three chapters and thirty-nine articles. Article 1 ordered the abolition of the four Holy Seats – Cilicia, Aght’amar (already defunct in 1895 ),Constantinople and Jerusalem. A new office of Catholicos/ Patriarch of the Ottoman Empire would be installed in Jerusalem away from the capitol, thus reducing its status to a small regional religious entity under the authority of the local governor. The spiritual and temporal authority of the Catholicos in Ejmiadsin would be completely neutralised..
Although the regulations provided special procedures for the election of a Catholicos /Patriarch by the Armenians, the triumvirate ignored this provision and Catholicos Sahak Khabayan was appointed for the post at the recommendation of Jemal Pasha. In May 1916, while on a visit to Jerusalem, Jemal Pasha summoned Catholicos Sahak for a private ‘friendly’ meeting, during which he told to him in private ‘ my government does not wish to allow a Catholicos subject to our enemy [the Russians] to become the moral and spiritual leader of the Armenians living within our borders’. He then informed him that the government had resolved to abolish all four Holy Seats within Ottoman territories and that he was selected as the only head of the Armenian Church with the title of ‘Catholicos/Patriarch of All Armenians’ in the Ottoman Empire. It is said Khapayan declined the post using his old age as an excuse. Promising financial and moral support, Jemal Pasha assured the catholicos that if he accepted the appointment, persecution of the Armenians would end. On the morning of Friday 11 August, 1916 two government functionaries in Istanbul paid a visit to Patriarch Zaven Ter Yeghiayan, handed him a letter from the Deputy Minister of Justice and Religion, addressed to him as ‘Former’ Patriarch of Constantinople, ordering him that effective immediately, he was relieved of his post as Patriarch and all the four Holy Seats under Ottoman rule would be replaced by a single leader and that the 1863 National Constitution was null and void. On 21 September, 1926 accompanied by military policemen, Patriarch Zaven was escorted out of town into exile in Bagdad, his birthplace. In his place Khapayan pursuant to article 24, he formally confirmed Bishop Gabriel Jevahijian as his Vicar in Istanbul. His second major step was to comply with the provisions of Article 5, which required him to form two councils - one, religious containing 12 clergy, and the other, mixed consisting of four clergy and eight lay members.
The Cloister Caravan – Վանքին Կարաւանը
In July 1915 the Turks drove more than 100,000Armenians from the vilayet of Adana and Marash into the Mesopotamian desert. This was the end of the Armenian presence in Cilicia. Catholicos Sahak II remained for 15 years in Aleppo.In 1930 the catholicostae moved to its present location in Ant’elias ,in the Labanon, north of Beirut.[
On 3rd September 1915 the brotherhood of the Catholicate of Cilicia gather the treasures of the eight hundred year old See into large, specially prepared leather cases, awaiting for the order to depart.13th September ,the Sunday Feast Day of Exaltation of the Cross, the monks and the handful of Armenians remaining in Sis,hand over the keys of the monastery to the government and depart. The journey from Sis to Aleppo lasted 23 days, part of the treasures in spite of several adventures, misfortunes and attacks that occurred along the way the Vank’in Karavane[ Վանքին Քարավանը] ( Cloister Caravan) reached Aleppo and delivered into the safe hands of Catholicos Sahak II(1849-1939,Catholicos from 1903-1939).In 1998 the rescued treasures were made accessible to the public in the recently opened Kilikia Museum in the centre of the Catholicate in Antelias in Lebanon where the historical See located itself in 1930. Hermann Golltz and Klaus E.Goltz, Rescued Armenian Treasures from Cilicia, Dr.Ludwig Reichert Verlag, Wiesbaden,2000]
The Theological Seminary of Armash
Those first in the line of the enemy’s sight were the graduates of the Theological Seminary of Armash, the promising generation raised under the spiritual and intellectual guidance of M. Ormanian and Eghishe Durian (1921-30).After the declaration of the National Constitution in 1860, there was the need to establish a well functioning establishment that would prepare the leaders of the church of the future. In 1889, Patriarch Khoren Ashegian(1872-88),established the Seminary of Armash under the abbotship of Ormanian adjacent to the Armenian Patriarchate of Constantinople. It was the general desire to turn the ancient Monastery of Armash that had existed since the 17th century into the ‘Venice of the Turkish Armenians’ .
In the period between 1889-1914 the Seminary prepared 34 celibate church leaders know as the 'Armashaklan generation' .They all occupied key positions in the life of the Armenians Church. A great number of them became primates or diocesan bishops in the remote provinces of Turkish Armenia looking after their spiritual needs of an oppressed people stricken at heart by the afflictions caused by the Turkish atrocities. Some of them perished as victims of the Turkish massacres, thus giving the example of Christian martyrdom as the supreme expression of their faithfulness to Christ. From among the graduates those who survived, became highly respected figures of the twenthieth- century Armenian hierarchy, whose literary, intellectual activities led the recovery of the Armenian Church in the Diaspora among them were - Babgen Kiwleserian(1868-1936) Catholicos of Cilicia,Eghishe Durian(1860-1930, Armenian Patriarch of Jerusalem, Archbishop Shahe Gasparian (1882-1935) Zawen Ter Eghiyian (1868-1922 )Armenian Patriarch of Constantinople, T’orkom Gushakain ( 1874-1930) Armenian Patriarch of Jerusalem.
In 1919 a silent film on the Armenian genocide was made based on the memoirs of a survivor Arshalouys[Aurora]Mardigian.The documentary called ‘Ravished Armenia’ is based on the book called The Auction of souls [The Auction of souls. The story of Aurora Mardigian, the Christian girl who survived the great massacres. Interpreted by H.L.Gates, London 1919].The film is made up of postcards of which the final scene is a crucifixion scene, but unlike the Christian image of Christ on the Cross which depicts the triumph of life over death. There are eight crosses in a row to which are nailed eight naked, young Armenian women. The film offers a panoramic view of the eight crosses and their victims, it focuses on a single sufferer. Nailed to the cross, she is helplessly alive. One could tell from her facial expressions that her cognitive functions were alive as she awaited the painful doom of her crucifixion. The scene symbolically expressed much that the Turks wanted to convey about their behaviour towards both the Armenians and their religion.
The perpetrators took the most sacred symbol of Christendom and turned it into a blasphemous obscenity, symbolically proclaiming absolute Muslim dominance .But something else was also conveyed by this brutal act: women are the child bearers. Their wombs carry the next generation. The message was clear: ‘We express our utter contempt for you and your religion. We intend to destroy your future. You have no human rights. We can do with you what we wish’.
Catholicos Gevorg V Sureneants (incumbency 1911-1930) on the Feast day of Easter in his Easter greetings ponders over the sacrifice of his people calling it ‘ Second Easter’ ,which the Armenian people celebrate with its millions of martyrs in the name of Christianity’.
‘Holy God, holy and mighty, holy and immortal. who wast crucified for us’, connects us to God, in as much as the second Person of the Holy Trinity(.i.e.God Himself) becomes a human being Who in turn turns Himself into us, the church, for propitiation and for remission of sins, at the rite that defines the church, namely the Divine Liturgy.
Now that the human sacrifice of 1915 has been sanctified like those of the Battle of Avarayr of 451, we can of them in the words of Eghishe they ‘bore their countless sufferings with great patience, placing their hopes in God and beseeching with prayers, that he might not suffer them to witness the destruction of their holy churches…since we recognise the Holy gospel to our Father and the Apostolic Catholic Church our mother. let no evil meddler come between us to separate us from her’.
The Armenian melody sung for the feast of the Holy Cross says
‘The cross appeared in the beginning, blossoming in the garden planted by God.
It was a comfort to Seth, a presage to the father Adam. We have put our trust in that wood, on which our Lord Jesus was nailed.
We humble ourselves and worship this holy sign that holds god up to us [ Աստուածընկալ]’
Appendix -
The names of the senior clergy killed in 1915
For a full text with biographies see: T’eodik, Յուշարձան Նահատակ Մտաւորականութեան (Memorial to the martyred intellectuals),2nd.ed.Erevan, 1985; A.Hatityan, ‘ Նոր Ղեվոնդյանք’ (New Ghewondians),Ejmiadsin,2-3-4(1965),58- 70.
Armenian Apostolic Orthod Orthodox Church
1.Bp.Khosrov Behrikian (1868-1915) 2.Bp.Smbat Saatet’ian( 1871-1915)
3.Mkrtitch Vardapet Jghlatian(18…1915) 4. Sahak Ds.Vard.Odabashian(1875-1915)
5.Artavazd Ds.vard. Galenderian (1876-1915) 6.Pargev Ds.vard.Danielian(1888-1915)
7.Psak Ds.vard.Ter Khornian(1882-1915) 8.Shawarsh Ds.vard.Sahakian( 1881-1915)
9.Suren vrad.Galemian(18…-1915) 10.Gegham vard.T’evek’elian(18… 1915)
11.Hamazasp vard.Eghisian(1864-1915) 12. Bp.Nerses Danielian(1868-1914)
13.Bp.Hakob Ashot P’ap’azian(1847-1914) 14. Bp.Khoren Dimak’sian(1864-1914)
15.Bp.Eznik Galbak’sian(1864-1915) 16.Gevorg Ds.vard.T’ourian (1872-1915)
17.Vardan Ds.vard.Hakobian (1846-1914) 18.Anania Ds.vard.Hazarapetian (1861-1915
19.Eeremia vard.Liforian(1875-1915) 20. Sahak vard.Sargisian (… 1915)
21.Hovsep’ vard.Sogomonian(1860-1915) 22.Nerses vard.Mkrtchian(1864-1915)
23.Abgar vard.Yot’neghbayrian (… 1915) 24.Barsegh Ds.vard.Makerian (1850-1915)
25.Sahak vard.Tcholak’ian 26.Yocvhannes vard.Mavian(1858-1915)
27.Ohan vard.Kyumishkhanei
28-32.The brotherhood of the Monastery of St Karapet:
Eghishe vard.Paluni,Komitas vard.Ardsruni,Eghishe vard.
Karapetian,step’anos vard.Baghdasarian,Karapet vard.Lariian.
Catholic Armenian Church
1.Bp.Anreas Tchelepian (1848-1915) 2. Bp.Step’anos Israyelian (1866-1915)
3.Bp.Hakob T’op’alian( 1855-1915) 4.Bp.Lewon K’eshenian( 1860-1915)
5.Bp.Karapet K’tchurian(1847-1915) 6.Bp.Hovsep’ Melik’set’ian
7.Bp.Mik’ayel Khatchatrian(1846-1915) 8.Bp.Ignatios Maloian(1878-1915)
Mkitharist Congregation of Venice & Vienna
1.Step’anos vard.Sarian(1865-1915) 2.Karapet vard.Ter Sahakian(1882-1915)
3.T’ovmas vard.Odabashian 91887-1915) 4.Poghos vard.Gasparian ( 1878-1915)
5. Matt’eos vard.Hachian (1867-1915).
Protestant Armenian Community
1.Prof. karapet Soghikian(1874-1915) 2. Prof.Mkrtitch Vorberian (1870-1915)
3.Prof.Hovhannes Pouniganian(1873) 4. Prof.Nikoghos T’enek’enian(1863-1915)
5.Prof.Tonapet K.Lyoulehian(1876-1915) 6.Prof.Arak’el K.Sivaslian(1859-1915)
7.Prof.Hovhannes Hakobian(1862-1915) 8.Prof.Hovhannes Arozian(…)
9.Prof.Zesi Mat’osian[42 years old] 10.Prof.Lout’fi Papikian[30years old]
11.Prof.Arshak Roumian [30 years old]
“For the memorial and salvation of all the Armenians, whose names the Lord knows”
[Armenian inscription in a mosaic in the apse of the sixth century funerary chapel in the Musrara Quarter of Jerusalem]
Revd. Dr Nerses Vrej Nersessian
April 2015