Author: Kajoyan Gevork

ARMENIAN CHURCH DECIDES TO END BLESSING MIXED MARRIAGES

Hurriyet Daily News
Oct 11 2012
Turkey

Armenian Patriarchate restarts regulations which nix the blessing and
the church wedding for the mixed marriages. Decision stirs debate in
the Armenian community

Photo: Murat Kaspar (groom), who married a Muslim Turk last month with
a church wedding, said the church’s decision stemmed from a desire to
protect the community and its traditions amid the country’s shrinking
Armenian population.

The Armenian Patriarchate in Turkey has restarted implementing
regulations in regards to mixed marriages, under which Armenians
marrying a person of a different religion will no longer receive a
blessing or be permitted to conduct a church wedding.

The permission for a church wedding for mixed marriages started in
2000 with Patriarch Mesrop Mutafyan’s approval, but the move sparked
debate within the community.

“We are putting into practice a law that already exists in our church.

I do not want to make any other statement than this,” acting Patriarch
Aram AteÅ~_yan told the Hurriyet Daily News regarding the latest move.

The new regulation went into effect Oct. 1.

Armenians in mixed marriages, as well as those from the community
engaged to non-Armenians, gave partial support to the patriarchate
but also expressed criticism on the matter.

Murat Kaspar, a 36-year-old design editor at daily Dunya who married
a Muslim Turk last month, said the church’s decision stemmed from a
desire to protect the community and its traditions amid the country’s
shrinking Armenian population.

“I do not think this decision is right. To have a church wedding is a
tradition. If those couples who will get married respect each other’s
beliefs, then this should not be prevented. I oppose conservatism,”
he said.

Zakarya Mildanoglu, a prominent member of the Armenian community,
married a Muslim Turkish woman 35 years ago. “We had to go through
extreme difficulties. Even though my wife converted to my religion,
our children were not baptized,” he said.

Feeling restricted

“Despite all the difficulties, I have not even for one moment thought
about taking a step back. Fortunately, I married my wife. If I had
married an Armenian, I don’t know if I would have been this happy. It
was my mother, not us, who experienced sadness. She was very sad that
the church refused to baptize the children,” Mildanoglu said.

‘I feel restricted’

Kristin, 33, who did not want to disclose her last name, is set to
marry a Muslim Turk. While she said she understood that the measures
were designed to protect the community, she also said she was against
the practice.

“The decision the patriarchate made seems wrong to me; I feel like I
am restricted. I even want to hide my last name while I’m talking to
you because my family and some of my close friends do not know about
my relationship,” she said. “I’m afraid of community pressure.”

Kristin said the choice of two people and their respect for each
other were more important than anything else, while criticizing the
failure to bless the Muslim spouse in the church.

“Couples cannot get married the way they wish to. Their marriages are
not accepted but their children are baptized. This is a controversy,”
she said.

But Anahid, 28, said she agreed with the patriarchate. “The regulations
of the Armenian Church and the community are definite and they should
be respected. The patriarchate is not inventing a new practice. They
are putting into practice one that already exists.

There is a serious increase in mixed marriages. The population,
traditions and the culture should be protected.” k HDN October/11/2012

NAPOLI’S MAGGIO: ITALY MUST BE WARY OF ARMENIA

Tribalfootball.com
Oct 10 2012

Napoli midfielder Christian Maggio says Italy must be wary facing
World Cup qualifying opponents Armenia.

Maggio is expected to start the game.

“There is a good chance that I’ll play and the whole team is ready
to take part in a fierce and difficult encounter,” he said from the
Azzurri’s Coverciano training base.

“We still don’t know too much about Armenia, but we will as there is
still plenty of time before the match.

“A few days ago I spoke to my Napoli teammate Marek Hamsik who faced
them last year. He told me that they don’t have great individual
qualities, but they are a side who work very hard.

“We’ll prepare properly for the game on Thursday.”

..

A CELEBRATION OF AUTHORS: CHRIS BOHJALIAN, LEAH HAGER COHEN, ELINOR LIPMAN TO SPEAK AT ANNUAL EVENT AT WORCESTER PUBLIC LIBRARY

TELEGRAM & GAZETTE (Massachusetts)
October 9, 2012 Tuesday

by Nancy Sheehan, TELEGRAM & GAZETTE STAFF

Author Chris Bohjalian will return to Worcester for a speaking
engagement Oct. 11. This time, there will be enough chairs.

Bohjalian, author of 15 books including “Midwives,” an Oprah’s Book
Club pick, and “The Sandcastle Girls,” his latest novel set during
the Armenian Genocide of 1915, will participate in this year’s
A Celebration of Authors event at Worcester Public Library. Also
appearing will be Leah Hager Cohen, author of several works including
her novel “The Grief of Others” and a member of the faculty at the
College of the Holy Cross; and Elinor Lipman, author of short stories,
essays, poetry, fiction and her most recent book, a humorous take
on our techno-obsessed culture, “Tweet Land of Liberty.” The event
is a fundraiser for the Worcester Public Library Foundation, whose
programs and services benefit the library.

Recently, we spoke with Bohjalian, who grew up in Westchester County,
New York, and now lives in Vermont. He told us about his first speaking
engagement in Worcester, which was at the Tatnuck Bookseller & Sons
back in the 1990s and hosted by the store’s former owners, Larry and
Gloria Abramoff.

Because Bohjalian had yet to establish his reputation as a writer,
a crowd was not expected – but that didn’t take into account the
fact that Worcester is a city with a considerable and close-knit
Armenian community.

“They had put out only about 15 chairs because they thought that was
all that would show up for this guy from Vermont that no one had heard
of,” Bohjalian said. “Well, because my name is Armenian there must have
been 70 people there, maybe more, and Larry was bring out more and more
and more chairs,” as the Armenian community came out to support a total
stranger whose last name ends in i-a-n. “It was glorious,” he said.

Bohjalian’s breakthrough, “Midwives,” would shortly follow and he was
a literary stranger no more after the phone rang one day and it was
Oprah telling him how much she liked his book. The result was instant,
high-profile bestseller status. He has received many awards since,
including the New England Society Book Award for “The Night Strangers.”

His latest novel, “The Sandcastle Girls,” finds the Armenian theme
resurgent after many years, since even before the Tatnuck Bookseller
metaphorical group hug. Published in July 2012, it is not his first
novel concerning his personal heritage, but it likely is the only one
you will ever read. It was 1993 when he made his first exploration of
the Armenian Genocide, the systematic extermination of the Armenian
minority within the Ottoman Empire, in what is now Turkey from 1915 to
1923. Bohjalian said that, even as he wrote, he knew it was a deeply
troubled manuscript. “That novel was a train wreck,” he said. It
was never published and the manuscript now is in the archives of his
alma mater, Amherst College. “If you are a scholar or a masochist,
you can go read it,” he said.

We asked why, almost 20 years later, he was prompted to revisit
the theme.

“First of all because the story is so important,” he said. “There
is a direct link between the Armenian Genocide and the Holocaust,
the Cambodian Killing Fields, Serbia, Rwanda, Darfur. Secondly,
the story is, as my narrator puts it `the slaughter you know next to
nothing about.’ America does not know this story because Turkey and
its allies continue to deny it. It’s not taught in schools.”

Thirdly, he began spending a lot of time with his father, whose health
had been deteriorating, looking through old family photographs, when a
good friend, Khatchig Mouradian, editor of Armenian Weekly, encouraged
him to try an exploration of his ethnic roots again. So he did, and
says he learned an immense amount in the process that enlivened the
few facts he had going into it. Though both his grandparents on his
father’s side were genocide survivors, he knew very little about what
they experienced in 1915.

“Like the grandchild of survivors, if somebody’s half Armenian,
you certainly know so many of the basics of the Armenian genocide,”
he said. “What I was doing with this novel was creating characters
that I cared about and that I hoped my readers would care about and
would bring the story to life.”

A Celebration of Authors

When: 7 p.m. Oct. 11

Where: Worcester Public Library, 3 Salem Square, Worcester

How much: $35 per person. For tickets and info call (508) 799-1656

ARMENIAN FINANCIAL OMBUDSMAN TO PROTECT CONSUMERS AND BUSINESS

Vestnik Kavkaza
Oct 9 2012
Russia

The Armenian financial ombudsman will protect consumers, small and
medium-scale business, as stated by Armenak Darbinyan of the Central
Bank, ARKA reports.

Financial Ombudswoman Piruz Sarkisyan noted that the ombudsman
institution was capable of fulfilling all functions.

Armenian formed the first financial ombudsman office of the CIS
on January 24, 2009, to protect bank clients and improve financial
confidence of people. The office compensated losses of $187,000 for
citizens in Q1 2012, compared with $142,000 in 2011 as a whole. The
sum exceeded $71,000 in 2010 and $64,000 in 2009.

SYRIA’S LOST HISTORY
BY Andrew Lawler

The Washington Post
October 10, 2012 Wednesday
Regional Edition

In March 2011, as she had done every Friday afternoon for years, Jenny
Poche Marrache held court at her 16th-century compound in the heart of
Aleppo’s sprawling ancient market. Wearing a fur-lined leather coat to
ward off the spring chill, the tiny 72-year-old regaled visitors with
stories of this city’s cosmopolitan past. When her great-grandfather –
a Bohemian crystal merchant – arrived here two centuries ago, Aleppo
had already been a hub of East-West trade for half a millennium.

Carpets from Persia, silks from China and high-quality local textiles
filled the warehouses and stalls. Even at the height of the Crusades,
Venetian agents exchanged timber and iron for Indian spices in the
city’s souks.

In the midst of Syria’s civil war, more is being lost than lives.

Aleppo may be the world’s oldest continuously occupied city, dating
to the era of the pyramids, and at the height of the Ottoman Empire,
it was the world’s largest metropolis after Istanbul and Cairo. That
antiquity, wealth and diversity left behind magnificent mosques with
Mameluke minarets, Ottoman-style bathhouses, and neoclassical columns
and balustrades overlooking traditional courtyards tiled with marble
and splashed by fountains. But Aleppo’s legacy extends beyond historic
buildings. The city welcomed people of many faiths and traditions,
while its old rival Damascus, a holy city and a gateway to Mecca,
was long out of bounds for Westerners. Muslims, Christians and
Jews created Syria’s commercial hub and one of the most tolerant,
long-lasting and prosperous communities in the Middle East. “What was
sold in the souks of Cairo in a month was sold in Aleppo in a day,”
Madame Poche said, quoting a Syrian adage.

As we sipped coffee the week that the civil war began, this refined,
prosperous world was already long in decline. “The situation
is deplorable,” Madame Poche said in French-accented English,
looking with disdain at the crates of cheap Chinese shoes filling
the courtyard. Neighborhood merchants complained that the local
textile mills had shut down, forcing them to replenish their stock
with inferior cloth from Dubai. Despite Aleppo’s status as a World
Heritage Site, many old buildings were in serious disrepair. And the
once-vibrant Jewish community had vanished.

Since my first visit to Aleppo two decades ago, a coalition of
entrepreneurs, city planners and foreign experts began the formidable
task of rescuing and restoring one of the cultural and architectural
jewels of the Middle East. Last year I walked along the new promenade
surrounding the moated and massive ancient citadel. I stayed at
one of the bed-and-breakfasts that had sprung up amid the warrens of
covered markets to cater to foreign tourists, and I visited a recently
uncovered 4,500-year-old temple. At an art gallery, I chatted with a
photographer who helped organize an edgy international arts festival –
an event unthinkable in dour Damascus.

The growing recognition of Aleppo’s importance in Middle Eastern
history and culture makes the burning of the old city all the more
tragic. In recent online videos, flames crackle in the closely
packed alleys of the covered bazaar, smoke billows from a medieval
caravansary, and an armed fighter gestures at the collapsed dome of
a 19th-century mosque. Reportedly, more than 500 shops in the 71 /
2 miles of streets within the region’s largest marketplace have been
damaged. The minaret of a 14th-century school is now only a stump. The
entrance of the medieval citadel is cratered, and the fortress’s huge
wooden gates are gone. A car bomb last week blew out the windows
of the Aleppo Museum, one of the world’s best collections of Near
Eastern artifacts.

And the fighting continues.

Amid the terrible human suffering – many remaining residents have no
running water or electricity, and they lack food amid the nightmare of
guerrilla warfare – concern about the destruction of material property
can appear gratuitous. But the ancient urban fabric of Aleppo is more
than an exotic tourist destination. “The Aleppo souks . . . stand
as testimony to Aleppo’s importance as a cultural crossroads since
the second millennium B.C.,” says Irina Bokova, director general
of UNESCO. She promised an investigation, though the conflict will
make it hard to assess damage, much less protect what is left. “The
situation is really catastrophic, as Aleppo is half destroyed,” Michel
Amalqdissi, director of the Syrian government’s archaeology division,
e-mailed me last week.

Nor is destruction limited to this commercial hub. Five of Syria’s
six most important ancient sites reportedly have been damaged, and
massive looting of the country’s ancient heritage may be underway.

Archaeologists fear that the losses could dwarf those that occurred
in Iraq after the U.S.-led invasion. Syria has arguably the richest
and most diverse history of any nation on Earth. It is home to the
ruin of what may be the world’s first city, a mound near the Iraqi
border called Tell Brak, as well as the famous Roman-era desert city
of Palmyra, the Crusader fortress Krak des Chevaliers and some of
Islam’s greatest monuments. Thousands of smaller sites encompass
more than 10,000 years of human history, from Neolithic villages to
Hittite strongholds, Roman forts, early Christian monasteries and
Umayyad palaces. Lacking protection, these sites are open to mass
theft that will feed the West’s hungry antiquities market.

The day after our coffee, Madame Poche’s son took me to lunch at
a fashionable restaurant in a restored Ottoman palace in today’s
Christian quarter. At the next table, a half-dozen clergy of different
Christian sects drank wine and chatted while Sunni businessmen in
suits talked deals nearby. At the time, Egypt’s revolution was only a
distant rumble, and those I spoke with dismissed the idea of a revolt
in a mercantile city tolerant of minorities. Aleppo, they noted,
took in thousands of Armenians fleeing Turkey a century ago and did
the same with Iraqi Christians after 2003. We didn’t know about the
arrest of several boys in the southern town of Daraa that week. Three
days after my lunch, the first open demonstration against the Syrian
regime took place. Since then, most of Madame Poche’s family, and
thousands of other Christians, have fled to Lebanon, Turkey and the
West. She, however, remains in her beloved city. “I’m worried about
my old house,” she e-mailed me Monday.

Aleppo’s remarkable history of diversity and tolerance – a model for
a region in turmoil – is itself perilously close to becoming history.

That past is an important bridge to a prosperous future that requires a
well-educated populace linked to the wider world. Amid the destruction
of a great city, there is more to mourn than shattered stone.

The writer is a freelance journalist who covers archaeology and
cultural heritage in the Middle East.

HEALTH MINISTER ADMITS PROBLEMS IN MEDICINES SECTOR

tert.am
10.10.12

Armenia’s minister of healthcare has called for efforts to regulate
the existing problems in the procedures of importing and registering
medicines.

At a Ministry board meeting earlier on Wednesday. Derenik Doumanyan
introduced the Draft Law on Medicines.

“We all agreed that there are really serious problems in the drugs
sector,” he said, considering the adoption of an organic law the most
important step towards settling the problems. “Under the procedures set
out in this bill, supplying the population with high-quality and safe
drugs, ensuring their physical and economic accessibility, enshrining
the principles of social justice in drug supply. and boosting the
drug manufacturing are among the key trends of the state policies
with regard to drug circulation. Over the past fortnight, the bill
has been discussed with representatives of several drug importing
companies, drug manufacturers, as well as Armenian representatives of
pharmaceutical firms. Most of the proposals made at the discussions
are now included in the bill presented today.”

Highlighting the importance of the bill, Lilit Ghazaryan, the deputy
director of the Ministry’s Scientific Center of Drug and Medical
Technology Expertise, said a medicine is a unique product whose
evaluation cannot be limited to ordinary sensual perceptions. She
stressed the need of ensuring the effectiveness of drugs, in addition
to quality and safety standards.

The board voiced different opinions and remarks. Considering the
bill successful, the head of the National Assembly’s Committee on
Healthcare, Ara Babloyan, proposed that three members of the committee
take part in the coming discussion.

“The adoption of this law is very urgent and can even be considered
belated. All the proposals made at today’s meeting will be discussed
with lawyers and experts. We no longer have the right to lose time,
so we have simultaneously to continue the work on by-laws. But
before that, the bill will be sent to the competent bodies and our
colleagues in the regions for their opinions and proposals. We are
ready to listen to everybody’s opinions. We are laying the foundation
stones of a very important activity,” the minister said at the end.

The bill received the boar members approval. After being amended,
it will be submitted to the government for further consideration.

ARMENIA TO FIGHT ILLEGAL HUNTING CASES

news.am
October 10, 2012 | 18:33

YEREVAN. – The Ministry of Nature Protection of Armenia held a
snap session on Sept. 28 in connection to the improvement works of
preventing illegal hunting in the territory of the country. Police of
Armenia has already instigated necessary action, the Ministry informs.

At the same time, the Minister fired head of the Khosrov Forest and
some other emlpoyees who were responsible for protecting the forest. A
quick respond squad was also established by the order of the Minister
in order to prevent trespassers’ attempts.

IVANISHVILI’S EXPLANATIONS VERY IMPORTANT – ARMENIANS OF GEORGIA

news.am
October 09, 2012 | 22:07

Bidzina Ivanishvili’s explanations regarding his statement about
Armenians of Georgia are very important, representative of the
community Alexander Ohanyan told Armenian News-NEWS.am.

“We do not know whether it was an original statement or simply an
explanation made after it,” he said adding that explanation published
on Ivanishvili’s official website is an important move.

Earlier, in an interview with the Russian The News Times newspaper
Ivanishvili said the following: “We, Georgians are so strange – we
are tied to the land. It is our character. For instance, Armenians
live here, too. I am bewildered, their home is near but they live here
[Goergia].”

Commenting on publication, Ivanishvili said it was misinterpreted
by the journalist. “All the citizens have equal rights regardless of
his/her ethnic background,” he said.

HUNGARY SHOULD REDEEM ITS FAULT BY RECOGNIZING ARMENIAN GENOCIDE. HUNGARIAN INTELLECTUAL

ARMENPRESS
9 October, 2012
YEREVAN

YEREVAN, OCTOBER 9, ARMENPRESS: The decision of Hungarian government
to extradite Safarov has been strongly criticized by the Hungarians.

There were protest actions at the Central Square of Hungary but
Hungarian society had its internal issues so very few were able to
actively respond, said Gabor Deak, Hungarian lecturer, journalist
and publisher, during the press conference.

“Tomorrow we will make a visit to Gurgen Margaryan’s tomb and pay a
tribute to his memory. We have initiated this trip, but our opinion
is the same with the majority of Hungarians” highlighted Gabor Deak,
reports Armenpress.

Referring to the decision of Hungarian court, Gabor Ivanyi noted
that Hungarian court, when reading the decision underlined that the
perpetrator must suffer the punishment till the end. According to the
scientists Hungarians are embarrassed and want to have warm relations
with Armenians and want to restore them.

“Regretfully, Hungary has not yet recognized Armenian Genocide by
Turkey when millions of people became the victim of it. Now it is
time for Hungary to think about the correction of its mistakes and
redeeming its fault” noted Hungarian historic, political analyst, an
expert on Russia and the former Soviet Union region Zoltan Biro. He
also informed that there were going to visit Armenian Genocide Museum
and plant a tree.

PACE SERIOUSLY CONCERNED OVER OSKANIAN CASE – ARMENIAN DELEGATES

tert.am
09.10.12

Several members and top figures of the Council of Europe’s
Parliamentary Assembly (PACE) are seriously concerned over the criminal
case against ex-Foreign Minister Vartan Oskanian.

After meeting the Armenian delegates to the Assembly – Naira
Zohrabyan (Prosperous Armenia party) and Vahan Hovhannisyan (Armenian
Revolutionary Federation-Dashnaksutyun) – the European parliamentarians
have extended their support to the Armenian politician.

“All the political groups and national delegations to the Assembly
have been given a relevant package and been notified of the details
which had been partially conveyed to them by ambassadors accredited
to Armenia. And we have received the most serious guarantees that the
case will be under the PACE’s spotlight,” Hovhannisyan and Zohrabyan
have said in a statement.

According to them, the European parliamentarians have asked to be
kept up to date on every new development in the process and promised
to rapidly respond to the concerns.

The Armenian delegates have expressed willingness to yield their
seat to Oskanian in the Assembly, realizing that the status vests a
Council of Europe parliamentarian with a certain degree of immunity.

Oskanyan, who is the founder of the Civilitas Foundation, quit the
organization’s board in May to join the Prosperous Armenia party
and run for parliament. On May 25, the National Security Council
launched a money laundering proceeding against Civilatas, accusing
the foundation of a failure to report a $1.5 million donation to the
tax authorities. Oskanyan’s lawyer later asked a Yerevan district the
court to halt the proceeding but his motion was rejected. Prosecutor
General Avghan Hovsepyan later asked the National Assembly to consider
stripping the ex minister of minister of mandate. His petition received
the parliament’s approval last week, with the opposition MPs boycotting
the voting.