Author: Chatinian Lara

PRESS OFFICE
Diocese of the Armenian Church of America (Eastern)
630 Second Avenue, New York, NY 10016
Contact: Jake Goshert, Coordinator of Information Services
Tel: (212) 686-0710 Ext. 60; Fax: (212) 779-3558
E-mail: [email protected]
Website:

June 8, 2004
___________________

TRIBUTE TO DR. THOMAS MATHEWS TO TAKE PLACE AT DIOCESAN CENTER ON JUNE 10

A tribute to Prof. Thomas Mathews, a specialist in Armenian and
Byzantine art, will take place on Thursday evening, June 10, 2004,
at the Diocese of the Armenian Church of America (Eastern) in New
York City.

Cosponsored by the Diocese’s Krikor and Clara Zohrab Resource Center
and the St. Nersess Armenian Seminary, the evening will feature two
keynote speakers — Dr. Helen Evans, curator of medieval art at the
Metropolitan Museum of Art, and Dr. Sylvie Merian, reference librarian
at the Pierpont Morgan Library — who are former students and current
colleagues of Prof. Mathews.

The retiring Prof. Mathews, the John Langeloth Loeb Professor of the
History of Art at New York University’s Institute of Fine Arts, has
done extensive study on Armenian and Byzantine art and architecture.
The evening is an opportunity to recognize the great contribution he
has made to the field of Armenian studies.

Dr. Mathews is the editor and co-author (with Avedis K. Sanjian) of
“Armenian Gospel Iconography: The Tradition of the Glajor Gospel,” the
first monographic study of a single Armenian manuscript. This work
was a collaborative study on an illustrated Armenian gospel book of
the 14th century which is owned by UCLA. Prof. Mathews also co-wrote
a second volume on this gospel, to accompany the exhibition of the
Gladzor (Glajor) Gospel at the J. Paul Getty Museum.

In the 1980s, Prof. Mathews conceived of an exhibit showcasing Armenian
illumination, book-making, and binding using collections in the United
States. The Pierpont Morgan Library in New York enthusiastically
adopted the idea, and more than 60,000 visitors saw it in 1994 at
both the Morgan Library and the Walters Art Gallery in Baltimore.

In conjunction with the exhibit, Prof. Mathews co-edited “Treasures in
Heaven: Armenian Illuminated Manuscripts,” an introduction to the art
and history of Armenian manuscript painting, and helped to organize
a symposium which resulted in a second volume of papers titled,
“Treasures in Heaven: Armenian Art, Religion, and Society”.

Some of his articles on Armenian themes are assembled in “Art and
Architecture in Byzantium and Armenia: Liturgical and Exegetical
Approaches” (1995), while others appear in “East of Byzantium: Syria
and Armenia in the Formative Period” (1982), which he co-edited.
He is the author of the provocative work, “The Clash of Gods:
A Reinterpretation of Early Christian Art” (1993; revised 1999),
“Byzantium: From Antiquity to the Renaissance” (1998), “The Byzantine
Churches of Istanbul: A Photographic Survey” (1976), “The Early
Churches of Constantinople: Architecture and Liturgy” (1971), and
“Art and Religion: Faith, Form and Reform” (1986).

He is a member of the Association Internationale des Etudes
Armeniennes, as well as the Medieval Academy of America. Among his
many honors are the J. Clawson Mills Fellowship of the Metropolitan
Museum of Art (1996), a National Endowment for the Humanities grant,
(1994), and a Hagop Kevorkian Fund research grant (1991). Dr. Mathews
received his doctorate degree in art history from NYU in 1970.

COLLEAGUES TO PAY TRIBUTE

A scholar of early Christian, Byzantine, and Armenian art, Dr. Helen
Evans has been involved with the Metropolitan Museum since 1986.
She was co-curator of the major exhibition “The Glory of Byzantium”
in 1997, and curator of the current exhibit, “Byzantium: Faith and
Power (1261-1557)”. Her dissertation at NYU was on “Manuscript
Illumination at the Armenian Patriarchate at Hromkla and the West.”
She served as co-curator of the “Treasures in Heaven: Armenian
Illuminated Manuscripts” exhibition.

Dr. Sylvie Merian has extensively researched, published and lectured
on Armenian codicology, binding, and illumination, as well as on the
history of the book. She contributed extensively to the exhibition
“Treasures in Heaven,” and was a co-author of the accompanying
catalogue.

The program and reception on June 10 will take place at 7:30 p.m. in
the formal reception room (Tahlij) of the Eastern Diocese (630
Second Ave., at 34th St., in New York City). The event is free and
open to the public, but reservations are necessary. Please e-mail
[email protected] or call (212) 686-0710, ext. 26.

— 6/8/04

# # #

FRENCH SOCIALIST LEADER URGES TURKEY TO RECOGNIZE SO- CALLED ARMENIAN
GENOCIDE FOR EU MEMBERSHIP

Turkishpress.com
Saturday June 5, 2004

French Socialist Party (SP) leader Francois Hollande yesterday said
that the European Union giving a date to Turkey to begin its accession
talks should be contingent on Ankara recognizing the so-called Armenian
genocide. In a joint press conference with Murat Papazyan, the European
head of Armenia’s Tashnak Party, Hollande said that in addition to the
Copenhagen criteria, Turkey should heed a 1987 European Parliament
1987 resolution calling for recognition of the so-called genocide,
withdrawal of Turkish troops from Cyprus and respect for human and
minority rights. /Milliyet/

Oskanyan Says Negotiations May Progress Within Next Two Months

Baku Today
04/06/2004

Armenian foreign minister said on Thursday that peace negotiations
to settle Nagorno-Karabakh conflict may progress in the near future,
The Associated Press Reported.

Vardan Oskanyan said that “certain progress” may be achieved on the
issue within the next two months, but he would not elaborate on that.

Armenia occupied Nagorno-Karabakh, a mountainous region of Azerbaijan
that is home to about 100,000 ethnic-Armenians, and also seven Azeri
administrative districts surrounding it in 1991-94 war. Despite a
cease-fire agreement reached in May 1994, no final settlement has
been found to the conflict.

The Daily Star, Lebanon
June 2 2004

Turkey’s ancient Christians seek to resettle villages
Syriac archbishop: ‘It is our pleasure to have our people back from
different parts of the world’

By Agence France Presse (AFP)

Turkey: The ancient Syriac Orthodox monastery outside this southeastern
city is praying for a brighter future as Christians, forced out
of their ancestral lands by economic hardship and an armed Kurdish
insurgency, start trickling back to their villages.

“It is our pleasure to have our people back from different parts of the
world,” said Archbishop Filuksinos Saliba Ozmen at the Deyrulzafaran
Monastery, which dates back to the 5th century and sits on a bluff
overlooking an extensive plain.

“By the grace of God they are coming back. Otherwise we would lose
everything, the entire community,” he added in his office adorned
with pictures of late archbishops and patriarchs.

The Syriac Orthodox community, one of the world’s oldest Christian
denominations, whose original congregations also settled into what is
today Iraq, Syria and Lebanon, numbered some 50,000 to 60,000 members
in southeastern Turkey in the 1960s.

Many left for Europe in the 1970s for economic reasons. Emigration to
countries such as Germany, Switzerland, the Netherlands and Sweden
ballooned over the following decade amid heavy fighting between
the army and Kurdish rebels seeking self-rule in the mainly Kurdish
southeast.

“We were caught in the middle of the clashes,” Ozmen said.

The community now numbers 20,000-25,000 with most now living in
Istanbul.

Recently some Syriac Orthodox families in Europe decided they would
try their luck and return to villages they had abandoned, as the
insurgency has almost died out after rebels declared a unilateral
cease-fire and took refuge in neighboring Iraq in 1999.

The rebels however issued a statement over the weekend threatening
new attacks.

“The situation now is at least safer than before. We have been
struggling, working for it to get better,” Ozmen said just before
that statement was issued.

Also bolstering the community’s hopes was an official government call
in 2001 for the Syrian Orthodox community to return and a guarantee
they would not be hindered from doing so.

Turkey’s drive to join the European Union is another influence on
the return of this Christian community, as the mainly Muslim country
strives to ensure religious freedoms and democratic rights for its
minorities in order to join the EU.

Ozmen explained that of 12 Syriac villages abandoned in the region,
only one, Marbobo, had been rebuilt and resettled after eight families
returned.

Reconstruction was under way in two other villages, Kafro and Arbo,
while plans were being drawn up for the rebuilding in some six other
villages in the surrounding rugged hills, said the archbishop.

“The authorities are helping us with getting water and electricity
to the villages. We are planning to receive some young families”,
said Ozmen. “If we get five percent of the Syriac community back,
it would not be bad,” he added.

But all is not rosy. The archbishop pointed to the difficulty of
keeping alive the culture of the community which uses Aramaic, the
language spoken at the time of Jesus, in its liturgy.

The Syriac Orthodox were not recognized as an official minority
in 1923 when the Turkish Republic was founded – unlike the Greek,
Jewish and Armenian communities – leaving them without the right to
open official schools.

The community resorted to sending their children to Turkish state
schools during the day and afterward to informal schooling in both
Deyrulzafaran as well as in the Mor Gabriel Monastery – the oldest
monastery in the world – in the nearby town of Midyat.

“That is why we would like to see Turkey in the EU to live better
and practice our culture better. We, as Christian minorities, have
a great task in establishing ties between Turkey and the European
Union,” said Ozmen.

By Hande Culpan, Agence France Presse

TOROSYAN: ARMENIAN AUTHORITIES FULFILLING CE COMMITMENTS

A1 Plus | 23:06:17 | 31-05-2004 | Politics |

PACE Monitoring Committee member and reporter on Armenia Yerzi
Yaskernia, who is now in Armenia, met Monday with Armenian National
Assembly Vice-Speaker Tigran Torosyan and the head of the parliamentary
standing commission on foreign affairs Armen Rustamyan.

Torosyan said Armenian authorities had accomplished a great deal in
complying with the PACE demands listed in its latest resolutions. He
said by the monitoring group’s expected visit to Armenia on June
14-17a detailed report will be prepared.

Answering Yaskernia’s question related to election irregularities
and those having committed illegalities during presidential and
parliamentary elections in Armenia, Torosyan said a paper had been
recently received from the Prosecutor’s Office, which would be put
on the National Assembly floor soon.

Asked about A1+ TV Company problem and pluralism in the media field,
Torosyan offered to send the CE experts to see the situation on site.

Murder incites speculation in media
By The Baltic Times

Baltic times, Latvia
May 27 2004

TALLINN – Estonia’s media on Wednesday was inundated with speculation
on the murder of ethnic Russian Estonian businessman and former member
of Tallinn City Council, Gennady Ever.

The Postimees daily speculated that the murder could have been revenge
on the part of the Estonian underworld for Ever’s unfulfilled promises
to local crime lords. Anonymous sources told the paper that Ever’s
garrulous relations with several figures of the mob might have lead
to the murder.

“Ever enjoyed their attention, he wanted to look influential and
authoritative,” a police source was quoted by the paper as saying.
Police sources said one promise that Ever gave but never fulfilled
to underworld boss Harun Dikayev was to obtain all necessary permits
to build a mosque in Tallinn. Another possible motive for the death
could be Ever’s business ties to Russia. As the Postimees reported,
Ever’s partner in the restaurant business in Pskov, just across the
border, was an ethnic Armenian businessman known as Rubik who had
been active in Estonia in the early 1990s.

Rubik, who moved to Russia years ago, was assassinated in Pskov two
months ago.

Eesti Paevaleht, another leading daily, has linked Ever’s murder to
the gunning down of Estonian media mogul Vitaly Haitov in front of his
Tallinn home in 2001. Sources told the newspaper that Ever may have
been killed by the underworld for being too open-mouthed and telling
his acquaintances how he ordered the murder of Haitov for Dikayev,
an ethnic Chechen. The paper said that this was why Ever recently
sold most of his business interests and real estate in Estonia and
moved to Russia.

Ever was shot seven times by a Kalashnikov equipped with a silencer
in Pskov on Tuesday morning.

Armenian ethnic leader blames Georgia for misreporting soccer incident

Yerkir, Yerevan
21 May 04

Text of S. Akopyan’s report by Armenian newspaper Yerkir on 21 May
headlined “The Tsalka events are presented in a distorted way”

The co-chairman of the unregistered Virk Party, editor of Akunk
newspaper, Mels Torosyan, comments on the Tsalka events on 6 May
[clashes between ethnic Georgians and Armenians during a football match
in Tsalka, southern Georgia]. He said that the local authorities and
law-enforcement agencies, as well as the central authorities in Tbilisi
and the Georgian mass media present distorted events to the public.

The reality is the following: after the victory of our young football
players, 50 or 60 Ajarians entered the pitch and started beating up
Armenian children. The incident took place in the regional centre which
is not populated by Armenians. The Armenians who were present there
went to the Armenian villages that are 10km away from the regional
centre and asked for help, after which a big clash took place.

The distortion of facts started after that. Tbilisi’s Imeti TV
company presented the event as an armed conflict and aired a video
report. But in reality, nobody was filming the events, there was not
even a camera. It became clear that the video report was about an
armed conflict that recently took place between the local Svan and
Ajarian residents.

Immediately after the conflict, the Ajarians went to Tbilisi and
organized a protest demonstration. And the police immediately
supported them.

According to Torosyan, this event is not the only one in Ajaria, there
have been many events of the sort. “Certainly, it is not a coincidence,
but a reality planned by the authorities, which aims to cleanse
Georgia of ethnic minorities. There are all grounds to think so.”

The current and previous authorities differ only by one feature:
“The current leaders create ethnic conflicts under the cover of
friendship, while [ex-Georgian President Zviad] Gamsakhurdia’s
government acted under the slogan ‘Georgia only for the Georgians’,”
Torosyan said. Incidentally, the chairwoman of the Georgian parliament,
Nino Burjanadze, believes that the problem was raised on the basis
of everyday conflicts and rules out an ethnic aspect. In doing so,
the authorities are trying to avert a possible wave of protests that
the incident might cause.

The police are trying to find weapons. There is a question: why was
there no investigation after the conflict between the Ajarians and
Svans and why were guns not confiscated? It was only announced that
the Armenians were armed. Torosyan thinks that this is also national
discrimination.

“It is time to talk about all the problems openly, it is time to raise
political, economic, ethnic and other problems, organize discussions
and make compromises to settle the problems. The time when everybody
acted secretly and hid the truth has passed.”

Turkish premier says meetings with Romanian leaders “positive”

Anatolia news agency, Ankara
21 May 04

Istanbul, 21 May: Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan
returned to Turkey on Friday [21 May] after completing his formal
visit to Romania.

[Passage omitted].

Noting that he believed the enthusiasm of making business and launching
initiatives had emerged between Turkey and Romania as a result of
meetings that Turkish ministers and businessmen had held with their
Romanian counterparts and their meetings under the Turkish-Romanian
Business Council Meeting, Erdogan said that they had also had the
chance of discussing few problems of 9,000 Turkish investors in
Romania with the Romanian prime minister.

Stating that the bilateral trade volume between Turkey and Romania had
been 1.8bn US dollars as of the end of 2003, which meant a 50-per-cent
increase when compared to 2002, Erdogan said that their bilateral
trade volume target in 2004 was at least 2.5bn US dollars.

Noting that he had also had positive meetings with the Romanian
president, parliament Speaker and Senate President during his visit,
Erdogan said: “They do have a very positive outlook on Turkey. I saw
that they exert efforts to enhance bilateral relations.”

Stressing that Turkey and Romania, two Black Sea littoral states,
had deep roots in history, Erdogan said that it also let the two
countries get closer to each other in their bilateral relations.

Noting that they had met the worshipping demands of Romanian citizens
in Turkey, Erdogan said, “I hope these steps that we took between
Turkey and Romania would create a partnership where our performances
in political, economic, commercial and cultural fields increase
gradually.”

Stressing that Turkey had supported Romania’s NATO membership since
the beginning, Erdogan said Romania had the chance of joining the
European Union most probably in 2007. Erdogan said that solidarity
between Turkey and Romania would continue also in the EU.

Asked whether he was planning to visit Turkey’s eastern neighbour
Armenia to solve problems, Erdogan said, “actually, we don’t have any
sine qua non about this issue. We said something when we started this
journey, ‘we exist to make friends in the world’. We make politics
with this objective. We have to see the environment and climate while
we are making it. When we don’t see the atmosphere, it gets difficult
to take steps on that direction. We wish that we would see and reach
such an atmosphere. And if we see it, we take necessary steps.”

“However, it is very difficult for us to take such steps as long
as intense Armenian genocide campaigns continue in the world. Our
job becomes easier if they leave it to historians. However, our job
gets difficult with a country that tries to build the future on a
mentality of ‘we can’t leave it historians’. I wish we would also
take such steps there as soon as possible,” he said.

Replying to a question about early general elections in the
[self-declared] Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC), Erdogan
said that it was not a decision up to the Turkish government.

[Passage omitted].

Arrested Oppositionist Begins Hunger Strike
By Karine Kalantarian and Ruzanna Stepanian 21/05/2004 12:37

Radio Free Europe, Czech Rep.
May 21 2004

Suren Sureniants, one of the opposition activists arrested last month,
has gone on hunger strike to protest his continuing imprisonment
and demand the release of all “political prisoners” in Armenia,
his lawyer said on Thursday.

The attorney, Robert Grigorian, told RFE/RL that his client is refusing
food in protest against the refusal of the Armenian Court of Appeals
to grant him bail pending the ongoing criminal investigation into the
opposition campaign against President Robert Kocharian. Sureniants and
several other senior members of the opposition Artarutyun alliance,
among them former Defense Minister Vagharshak Harutiunian, have been
held in custody for more than a month, accused of publicly advocating
a “violent overthrow of constitutional order” and “insulting” senior
government officials. They strongly deny the charges.

The Artarutyun activists top the list of 14 opposition detainees
who have been declared political prisoners by several local
non-governmental organizations. Three of those detainees have already
been sentenced to one year in prison on charges of “hooliganism”
stemming from their violent clash with Kocharian supporters and
plainclothes police that tried to disrupt an opposition rally in
Gyumri in late March.

Armenia’s presidentially appointed human rights ombudsman, Larisa
Alaverdian, on Thursday admitted that the case against Sureniants
and the other oppositionists is politically motivated. “These cases
contain a political component,” she told RFE/RL, specifically deploring
the pre-trial arrests.

Alaverdian also urged Sureniants to end the hunger strike. “The
situation is not yet such that he has to resort to such actions,”
she said.

Meanwhile, Artarutyun and its opposition ally, the National Unity Party
(AMK), said 28 of their activists around the country were rounded up
and questioned by the police on Thursday ahead of Friday’s opposition
rally in Yerevan which could end in another march towards Kocharian’s
residence. Opposition sources said some of them were sentenced to
ten days’ imprisonment under the Soviet-era Code of Administrative
Offences.

A spokesman for the national police in Yerevan refused to refute or
confirm the information.

Euro recon bank ups investment in Armenia

Big News Network.com, Australia
May 20 2004

The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development is boosting its
investment in Armenia, the Moscow Times reported Thursday.

The ERBD is going to almost double its annual investment in the small,
former Soviet republic in the Caucasus this year to 10 million to
12 million euros ($12 million to $14 million), bank President Jean
Lemierre said at a briefing in the Armenian capital of Yerevan.

Lemierre also said the bank planned to further raise its investment
to 20 million euros, ($24 million) in 2005.

The EBRD planned to invest major resources in small- and medium-sized
businesses producing food products, Lemierre said. The bank was also
going to expand its branch office in Yerevan and increase the number
of staffers there dealing with small- and medium-sized businesses,
he said.