Author: Bedik Zaminian

Excavation work for a new metro line in Rome has unearthed a huge Roman barracks from the 2nd Century AD when Emperor Hadrian was in power, the BBC reports.

The find is so impressive that Italy plans to create Rome’s first “archaeological station” at Amba Aradam, on the city’s third metro line.

The new station is being built while archaeologists brush dirt away from artefacts and mosaics 9m (30ft) below street level. The ruins cover 900sq m.

The site, thought to have housed Hadrian’s Praetorian Guard, includes a 100m hallway with 39 rooms.

An Italian Culture Ministry official called the unearthing of the Roman Praetorian Guard barracks “exceptional”.

The Praetorian Guard was created by Rome’s first emperor, Augustus, and served as the emperors’ bodyguards and private military force.

Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan had a meeting with US Secretary of State John Kerry in Vienna today, President’s Press Office reports.

The parties discussed the perspectives of overcoming the situation established as a result of the gross violation of the ceasefire regime in the Karabakh conflict zone in April this year.

Emphasizing the importance of the OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairs’ statement dated May 12, President Sargsyan noted that for the resumption of the negotiation process it is necessary to ensure the full implementation of the 1994 agreement on ceasefire and the 1995 agreement on the reinforcement of ceasefire, as well as  the soonest implementation of the mechanism of investigation of border incidents.

Stressing the fact that the current meetings were initiated by the Foreign Ministers of the co-chairing countries, President Sargsyan voiced hope that they would be as  consistent in their targeted position and would take clear steps to contribute to the creation of favorable conditions for the resumption of talks.

The parties reiterated that there is no military solution to the Karabakh conflict and stressed the need to find mutually acceptable mechanisms of settlement on the ground of the basic principles.

Photo: AFP

 

Russia’s foreign minister says a unilateral truce declared by the Syrian military could be extended to the city of Aleppo “in the next few hours,” the BBC reports.

Sergei Lavrov said Russia was working with the UN and US to include Aleppo in the “regime of calm” that has covered Damascus and Latakia since Saturday.

But Mr Lavrov warned that rebels would have to leave areas where allied jihadist militants were being targeted.

More than 250 people have been killed in Aleppo in the past 10 days.

About two-thirds of those deaths have been in the rebel-held eastern side of the city, including 50 in an air strike on a hospital the US says was deliberate.

On Tuesday, 14 people were killed by rebel rocket fire in government-controlled areas of Aleppo, including three in an attack on a hospital, state media reported.

St Gregory of Narek, a Doctor of the Church, urges us to recognise the evil within us and the world

By Vahan Dilanyan

This Sunday Armenians and people of good will around the world will commemorate the victims of the Armenian Genocide.

A century ago millions of men, women and children – including Assyrians and Greeks – were brutally tortured and exterminated upon the direct order and plan of the Ottoman Turkish government, thereby emptying the region of its indigenous populations and deliberately destroying millennia-old Christian heritage.

Armenians were martyred also because of their Christian faith and as recently as last year the Armenian Apostolic Church canonised all the victims of the genocide as saints.

It is tragic that the cycle of genocide continues to this day in various parts of the world. Part of the reason behind it is the impunity of the past crimes and the unwillingness of the international community to undertake meaningful measure to stop it. Only by fully facing the tragedies of the past and dealing with them in a truthful and just manner can the humanity move forward.

These ideas are enshrined in the work of a 10th-century Armenian monk, St Gregory of Narek, whom Pope Francis proclaimed a Doctor of the Church for his invaluable contributions towards the Christian theology and community at-large.

St Gregory of Narek is best-known for his work the Book of Lamentations (also called Book of Prayers), which outlines profound ideas about the purification and sanctification of humanity. The book is a monologue structured as a prayer to God “from the depths of the heart” in which St Gregory ascribes to himself all possible sins, exposing himself and confessing to God.

The saint suggests a way of human perfection through repenting to God. This was a revolutionary idea aimed at dispelling the ignorance of the Middle Ages. Long before Martin Luther, St Gregory advocated direct communication with God. Centuries later this idea was to become the basis of Reformation.

It is worth mentioning that there is not a single mention of “Armenian” or “Armenia” throughout the entire text, which proves the work’s universal nature.

St Gregory’s ideas have a crucial meaning in the modern world full of violence and intolerance. While losing spiritual and moral values in the euphoria of development of civilisation, humanity’s image of divinity has been degraded. St Gregory provides for a path towards salvation through repentance.

The idea of repentance is of particular importance in the context of the recognition of Armenian Genocide, since the 101st anniversary of the genocide serves as a new milestone to dispel the gloom and struggle against the denial of the crime by Turkey in the 21st century. As Pope Francis said, “concealing or denying evil is like allowing a wound to keep bleeding without bandaging it.”

The denial and impunity of a crime enable its repetition in the future, as proven by the cases of the Holocaust, Cambodia, Rwanda, Darfur, as well as the ongoing genocide against Yazidis, Christians and other minorities in the Middle East at the hands of ISIS.

This cycle will continue for as long as the world does not repent of the sins that have remained unacknowledged to this day. Only with the proper recognition and true justice can peace be established in the world. St Gregory’s ideas are as relevant today as they were in centuries past.

Vahan Dilanyan is the Assistant to the Prime Minister of the Republic of Armenia. He previously served as the Adviser to the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Nagorno Karabakh. He has a PhD in Political Science

 

 

 

The Amen Project, a unique musical dramatic show dedicated to the memory of the victims of the Armenian and other genocides, will be presented at Arena di Verona, the largest opera hall in the world with the holding capacity of 15 000 spectators.

“Why Amen? Because it’s a word comprehensible to all religions of the world,” producer of the show, composer Araksya Mushegyan told reporters in Yerevan today. She said “it’s an epic drama that will tell about the Armenian people, its origin and faith, its values and place in the history of civilization

“The project aims to show the world that despite the losses and hardships, the Armenian nation continue living, being happy and creative as part of a family with other nations. We present ourselves to the world with our most powerful weapon – the millennia-long rich culture,” author of the script Edward Aranyan said.

“The project is a brilliant opportunity to present Armenia with its history and culture. Speaking about the Genocide, we’ll be speaking about tolerance, the lack of which leads to new genocides in the world today,” Italian producer David Zard said.

After the premiere in Verona, the show will be taken to London, Paris, New York and other places.

The Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Boston (JCRC), representing the organized Jewish community in Boston, agrees with the message of the editorial by Andrew Tarsy (“,” Journal, March 17) that “American Jews have a wrong of our own to right” when it comes to the recognition of the Armenian Genocide.

“The time has come, 101 years after the extermination of over one million Armenian citizens, for the United States to acknowledge the massacre by the Ottoman Turks in 1915 as genocide,” Jeremy Burton, JCRC Executive Director writes in the .

“Armenians and Jews share a tragic historical bond. It was only thirty years after the Armenian Genocide that six million Jews were killed by the Nazi regime.”

Last October, the JCRC of Greater Boston and the JCRC of Greater Rhode Island led the efforts of the Jewish Council of Public Affairs (JCPA) – the consensus body of the American Jewish community – to issue a resolution that urges our Congress and the President to recognize the Armenian Genocide.
As Tarsy stated so powerfully: “When we participate in the blurring of historical memory, we dishonor the dead and endanger the living.”

Armenian Prime Minister Hovik Abrahamyan had a phone conversation with his Russian counterpart Dmitry Medvedev today.

The interlocutors discussed issues related to Medvedev;s upcoming official visit to Armenia and the sitting of the Eurasian Intergovernmental Council to be held in Armenia.

Hovik Abrahamyan and Dmitry Medvedev referred to the agenda of the Armenian-Russian allied relations and trade-economic cooperation.

On March 30, Leigh Carter, wife of U.S. Ambassador to Armenia Richard M. Mills, kicked off the U.S. Embassy’s fourth annual Women’s Mentoring Program with a press conference held at the American University in Armenia (AUA). The 2016-2017 mentoring program, which is organized in partnership with AUA PSIA (Political Science and International Affairs) Program and the Women and Youth Development and Support Center,  was timed to coincide with and celebrate Women’s History Month.  Key speakers at the press conference included mentors Hasmik Sahakyan, President of Women and Youth Development and Support Center NGO and Shushan Doydoyan, Head of Personal Data Protection Department, Ministry of Justice.

U.S. Women’s History Month is celebrated every year in March to recognize the contributions of women to society.  President Obama recently stated: “Because of the courage of so many bold women who dared to transcend preconceived expectations and prove they were capable of doing all that a man could do and more, advances were made, discoveries were revealed, barriers were broken, and progress triumphed… Through hardship and strife and in every realm of life, women have spurred change in communities around the world, steadfastly joining together to overcome adversity and lead the charge for a fairer, more inclusive, and more progressive society.”

The U.S. Embassy and AUA first established the Women’s Mentoring Program in 2010.  Mentors provide career advice, share their personal experiences, and serve as role models to promising young students. In 2016-17, 61 Armenian women from a variety of professional fields will mentor 62 women BA and MA student from different universities as well as students from the “Houso Aygi” Young Women Charitable Foundation and the Mer Doon Organization.

Scientist Stephen Hawking has paid tribute to the teacher who inspired his early steps into scholarship, the reports. 

He says Dikran Tahta at St Albans School opened his eyes to maths, which he describes as the “blueprint of the universe”.

“My handwriting was bad, and I could be lazy. Many teachers were boring. Not Mr Tahta,” said the physicist.

Prof Hawking was speaking ahead of this weekend’s award of the Global Teacher Prize.

The award-winning scientist has recorded a video commending his teacher, who died in 2006.

“His classes were lively and exciting. Everything could be debated. Together we built my first computer, it was made with electro-mechanical switches,” said Prof Hawking.

“Thanks to Mr Tahta, I became a professor of mathematics at Cambridge, a position once held by Isaac Newton.”

Prof Hawking said that “behind every exceptional person, there is an exceptional teacher”.

Dikran Tahta’s family settled in Manchester after the Armenian Genocide. Much of his childhood, and the influence of his Armenian religious upbringing, is reflected upon in his penultimate book Ararat Associations, in which he notes how his parents were keen for their children to have an English education, yet made sure that they spoke Armenian at home. He was christened by Bishop Tourian in the Armenian Church in Manchester, and his name Dikran was shortened to Dick, but he never forgot his Armenian roots.

President Serzh Sargsyan has issued a congratulatory message on International Women’s Day.

“Today we are glorifying our women, the protectors of the warmth of our families and the maturity of the society,” the President said.

“Today our women play a greater role in our country than ever. This trend will further deepen as a result of the Constitutional changes. The growing role of women in Armenia will, in turn, strengthen the guidelines of peaceful co-existence, fair work and creativity, which we really prioritize,” the message reads.