SURB KHACH AND THE EARTHQUAKE
RIA Novosti
Oct 24 2011
Russia
Spirit of the Times
Andrei Zolotov, Jr.For more than a day now the devastating earthquake
in Eastern Turkey has been in the focus of the global news agenda. By
Monday evening, 279 people have been reported dead and hundreds more
are wounded. It is only natural that it is people’s tragedy that
draws attention and sympathy across the world.
Despite all this, I find it a bit strange that to this hour Google
News yields no reports about the fate of the superb ancient Armenian
monuments in the Province of Van, including its gem – the 10th century
Surb Khach, or Holy Cross, Cathedral on the island of Akhtamar in
the Lake Van. After all, the land that has been rocked, once again,
by a major earthquake is known to millions of Armenians around the
world as Western Armenia – the territory, from which Armenians were
driven during the genocide of 1915, which to this date remains the
bone of contention in Turkey’s international relations. Its remaining
landmarks, such as the ruins of the ancient Armenian capital of Ani
or the fascinating Holy Cross Cathedral on the Lake Van, are not
only the distant Wailing Walls of the Armenian people. They are –
or at least should be – world heritage sites, dear to all cultured
people regardless of their ethnicity or religion.
© AFP/ MUSTAFA OZER Armenian Cathedral of the Holy Cross on the
Akhtamar island in lake Van, eastern Turkey Turkey understands this. As
reluctantly and ambiguously as one can, it recognized the importance of
Surb Khach by giving it a state-funded restoration several years ago,
after decades of vandalism and neglect, and reopening it – not as a
church, but as a museum.
I am not saying that at this hour the fate of the medieval monuments
should take priority to human lives. Of course not. But tomorrow, or
the day after, I – and I am sure, many others – would like to know,
how these great churches and city walls survived this earthquake, just
one of many in their centuries-old existence. Caring about them appears
to be the least political and most face saving way for Turkey to mend
fences not only with Armenians, but with millions of other Christians
and nations who have demonstrated concern for the events of 1915.
By a sheer coincidence – or, some would say, providentially –
on the same day that Eastern Turkey/Western Armenia was shaken
by the earthquake, in Moscow, the Catholicos of the Armenian
Apostolic Church, Karekin II, in the presence of Armenia’s
President Serge Sargsyan and Russian church and state officials,
blessed the crosses for another Surb Khach – a new cathedral
of the Armenian Apostolic Church in Russia, which imitates the
forms of the Holy Cross Cathedral on the Lake Van. (see photos
here ) The impressive
cathedral in north central Moscow, which has now been finished in
terms of overall construction (interior decoration remains to be done)
will be the biggest Armenian church outside of Armenia and the center
of the territorially largest diocese of the Armenian Apostolic Church
worldwide. Given the millions-strong Armenian diaspora in Russia,
numerically it is probably also one of the largest.
Today, during the talks between Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and
Armenian President Serge Sargsyan, they called Turkey’s President
Abdullah Gul to express their condolences. Given the absence of
diplomatic relations and the closed border between Armenia and Turkey
– the border going now through the earthquake zone – it is not a
small thing.
When all those dead in this earthquake are mourned and laid to rest,
when all the wounded are taken care of, the world will want to know
about the status of the great remains of the centuries of Armenian
presence in Eastern Turkey. By behaving one way or another in that
regard, Turkey can either make a step towards healing the old wounds
or stir them once again.