Armenians gathered at Saint Anna church in the center of Yerevan, Armenia, to celebrate Artsakh Republic Day on September 1, 2024. | ANTHONY PIZZOFERRATO/Middle East Images/AFP via Getty Images

Today, Armenians around the world will gather in churches and public squares to remember the first genocide of the 20th century.

They will light candles, sing hymns, and speak the names of 1.5 million men, women, and children who were driven from their homes and killed in massacres and forced deportations that lasted from 1915 to 1923. For many Christians, this day can feel like someone else’s history lesson. But it is not. It is our story too.

Armenia is widely recognized as the world’s first Christian nation, embracing the Gospel in the early fourth century. Its churches, monasteries, and martyrs stand at the very beginning of Christian civilization. When we mark Armenian Genocide Remembrance Day, we are not simply looking back at an atrocity against a distant people. We remember not only tragedy, but a direct assault on a Christian nation and on Christians.

Memory, for Christians, is never meant to be passive. We remember so that we can see clearly, repent honestly, and act faithfully. If “never again” is to mean anything beyond a slogan, then April 24 must inform how we respond to Armenia’s present dangers.

The unfinished story

More than a century after the genocide, Armenians are still waiting for full acknowledgment and accountability. They are also facing new threats today, as the Republic of Armenia has come under sustained pressure from its larger neighbor, Azerbaijan.

Independent observers have documented four deeply troubling patterns: state-led hate speech against Armenians, a state-backed campaign that denies Armenian sovereignty, incursions into recognized Armenian territory, and the continued detention and abuse of Armenian prisoners. These patterns, documented by international courts, human rights organizations, and church advocates, carry deep moral significance for Christians.

These are not abstract policy debates. They are the real-world tests of whether words like “peace,” “normalization,” and “stability” are honest or empty. On this Armenian Genocide Remembrance Day, I want to name four such tests, four concrete places where Azerbaijan’s behavior must change if there is to be any credible path to peace.

The four demands are simple to state:

1. Stop the hate speech

In December 2021, the International Court of Justice ordered Azerbaijan to prevent and punish hate speech against Armenians by officials and public institutions, recognizing the risk of incitement. This is not the language of activists; it is the language of the world’s highest court. The Court’s order came in response to evidence of state-led, systematic anti-Armenian rhetoric, including at the highest levels of government.

A report on “Aliyev and Hate Speech” documents repeated dehumanizing statements by President Ilham Aliyev and other officials, noting that such rhetoric continued even after the ICJ’s order. Further research has also shown anti-Armenian hostility institutionalized in schoolbooks, state media, and official narratives, describing Armenians as the most vilified group in the country.

As Christians, we understand that words matter. Scripture tells us that life and death are in the power of the tongue. Hate speech by state leaders is not a minor diplomatic misstep; it is a recognized early warning sign for mass violence and ethnic cleansing. When leaders mock, demonize, and dehumanize Armenians, they are preparing their people to accept whatever happens to them next.

Our first demand is clear: Azerbaijan must stop the hate speech, especially from officials and state-controlled institutions, and comply fully with the International Court of Justice’s order.

2. Shut down the “Western Azerbaijan” community

The second concern is less familiar to many Christians, but equally serious. In recent years, Azerbaijan has promoted an official concept called “Western Azerbaijan,” a term that frames the sovereign territory of the Republic of Armenia as historically Azerbaijani land. Alongside this concept, it has promoted an organization called the Western Azerbaijan Community as part of an official narrative that treats Armenia itself as a land to which Azerbaijan has historic claims.

Investigative reporting has shown that this community is not simply a grassroots group of displaced people. It is closely coordinated and supported by Azerbaijan’s Presidential Administration, functioning as a state-directed communication strategy. Analysts note that while the campaign uses humanitarian language, it carries clear irredentist undertones and helps keep nationalist fervor constantly alive.

In plain terms, this is a government-backed effort to rebrand Armenia as “Western Azerbaijan.” It is aimed not only at international audiences but at Azerbaijan’s own citizens, shaping public imagination to see Armenia not as a neighbor, but as a land that rightly belongs to them.

Christians should recognize this pattern. When a state begins to rename someone else’s homeland, it is preparing its people to accept the erasure of that neighbor’s sovereignty. That is not reconciliation; it is preparation for further injustice.

Our second demand is straightforward: Azerbaijan must shut down the Western Azerbaijan Community as a state project and abandon this irredentist campaign entirely.

3. De-occupy Armenian territory

Since May 2021, as part of the ongoing Armenia-Azerbaijan border crisis, Azerbaijani forces have crossed into and remained on internationally recognized Armenian territory. Reports indicate that troops advanced into Armenia’s Syunik and Gegharkunik provinces, occupying strategic positions, attacking nearby communities, and displacing civilians.

Analysts estimate that Azerbaijan continues to occupy at least 215 square kilometers of Armenian territory, with dozens of towns and villages affected during escalations such as the September 2022 attacks. Global conflict trackers emphasize that these incursions create a constant risk of renewed war and undermine any sense of security for Armenian communities living near the border.

For Christians, the language of land and borders can feel technical, but it is not. Land is where families live, work, worship, and bury their dead. It is where churches are built, and communities endure. To keep foreign troops on someone else’s recognized territory is to keep those communities under permanent duress.

Our third demand follows directly: Azerbaijan must withdraw its forces from Armenian territory. A just peace cannot be built while recognized land remains under foreign military occupation.

4. Release the prisoners

The fourth area of concern is the fate of Armenian prisoners held in Azerbaijan, both prisoners of war and civilians.

Human rights organizations and atrocity monitors have documented grave abuses against Armenian detainees, including torture, extrajudicial killings, and degrading treatment. Following Azerbaijan’s September 2023 offensive in Nagorno-Karabakh and the forced exodus of more than 100,000 ethnic Armenians, reports highlighted the continued detention of Armenians in Azerbaijani custody as part of a broader pattern of coercion.

Religious freedom advocates have also raised alarms about the specifically Christian dimension of that abuse. A recent report by the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom details cases in which Armenian Christian prisoners were denied Bibles, subjected to beatings, and even had cross tattoos burned off their bodies while in Azerbaijani detention. The same report warns of the ongoing destruction of Armenian Christian heritage in areas under Azerbaijani control.

International humanitarian law is clear: after active hostilities cease, prisoners of war must be promptly released and repatriated. Holding them as bargaining chips for political or territorial concessions is a violation of those norms.

Our fourth demand is therefore deeply moral and unmistakably Christian: Azerbaijan must release Armenian prisoners and cease both the abuse of detainees and the destruction of Armenian Christian heritage.

So, what should followers of Jesus do with this information?

First, we should remember rightly. That means not only honoring the holy martyrs of the Armenian Genocide, whom the Armenian Church has canonized, but also recognizing that the same people and church remain under threat today. The genocidal logic of the early 20th century has not disappeared; it has taken on new forms in our own time.

Second, we should pray specifically. Pray for Armenia’s leaders, for the protection of its borders, for the safety of Armenian prisoners, and for the repentance of those who traffic in hatred and lies. Pray for the Armenian Church as it ministers in the shadow of both historical trauma and present danger.

Third, we should speak and act. That means educating those around us about April 24 and about the current situation. It means asking our elected officials to press for these four concrete steps: stopping hate speech, shutting down the Western Azerbaijan campaign, de-occupying Armenian territory, and releasing Armenian prisoners.

When Christians raise their voices together, especially during a week when the world is paying attention, history shows that it matters. The question on this Armenian Genocide Remembrance Day is not whether you care. The question is what you will do about it.

Remember rightly. Pray specifically. Then pick up the phone, send the email, share this article, and ask your elected officials to stand with Armenia on these four demands. The martyrs of 1915 cannot speak for themselves. We can.

In his message on the 111th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide, Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan described the Genocide as ‘the greatest tragedy’ of the Armenian people, while stating that, according to Armenian academic literature, it ‘was also a consequence of the practice of drawing the Armenian people into international machinations’.

‘A practice that began in the mid-19th century and reached its tragic culmination in 1915’, Pashinyan said on Friday.

The massacres committed by the Ottoman Empire resulted in the deaths of nearly 1.5 million Armenians, approximately 750,000 Assyrians, and at least 1.1 million Greeks. Turkey, the empire’s successor state, has continuously denied the genocidal acts committed by the Ottomans.

Pashinyan’s remarks came amidst an ongoing debate over previous comments he has made regarding the Armenian Genocide. In January 2025, he caused outrage after questioning why the Armenian Genocide only became a public issue in 1950, stating that ‘we need to understand what happened and why it happened. And how did we perceive it, through whom did we perceive it?’.

‘Statehood and peace are the guarantees that the Armenian Genocide will never happen again’, Pashinyan said on Friday, further arguing that his government’s policies have been rooted in reflecting on historical patterns and preventing their recurrence.

‘To realise this historic goal, we must cease searching for a homeland beyond the internationally recognised 29,743 square kilometres of […] Armenia. This territory is not small for the prosperity, development, and well-being of the Armenian people’, Pashinyan said.

He further touched upon his Real Armenia ideology, first voiced in April 2024, insisting that Armenians must accept modern Armenia within its current borders. At the same time, he cautioned that advocating for ‘historical justice’ could steer Armenia back toward approaches that may threaten its statehood and sovereignty.

‘We have ultimately escaped this trap, and attempts to drag Armenia back in that direction are an invitation to the gallows for our state and people’, Pashinyan said.

Recognition of the Armenian Genocide had, until recently, been one of Armenia’s top foreign diplomacy priorities. However, in October 2024, Armenian Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan said that international recognition was ‘not our number one priority’. Instead, he noted that the number one priority of Armenia’s foreign policy was to ensure peace and stability around Armenia, as well as the normalisation and development of relations with neighbouring states.

In Friday’s speech, Pashinyan also touched upon the recognition issue, saying that recognition ‘must not be allowed to become a tool in the hands of international actors in their conflicts with one another’.

Separately, Pashinyan condemned the burning of the Turkish flag by participants of the annual torchlight march on the eve of remembrance day, organised by the oppositional Armenian Revolutionary Federation, calling it ‘irresponsible and unacceptable’ behaviour.

Similar messages were shared by ruling party Civil Contract members, including Parliamentary Speaker Alen Simonyan, who called the flag burning ‘petty and unacceptable provocations against peace and the future’, adding that it ‘casts a shadow over the meaning of 24 April’.

Since 2022, Armenia and Turkey have been engaged in a renewed normalisation process. While some progress has been made, the two countries have yet to establish diplomatic relations, and their land border remains closed despite a 2022 agreement.

Although Yerevan has said it entered the normalisation process without preconditions, Ankara has repeatedly linked further progress to developments in the Armenia–Azerbaijan peace process.

Many Armenian Americans in Rhode Island and beyond have pledged to never forget the Armenian genocide.

Armenian Genocide Remembrance Day is today, April 24, 2026. It marks the 111th anniversary of when the mass-killing of 1.5 million Armenians in the Ottoman Empire began.

Hundreds of thousands of Armenians fled the genocide and immigrated across the United States, from Los Angeles, California to Providence, Rhode Island.

“Providence is home to a small, but vibrant, Armenian population, and three Armenian churches: Armenian Euphrates Evangelical Church, Saints Sahag and Mesrob Armenian Apostolic Church, and Sts. Vartanantz Armenian Apostolic Church,” the Society for Orphaned Armenian Relief said.

Here’s what you need to know about Armenian Genocide Remembrance Day in Rhode Island.