Symbols of thousand-year-old Armenian presence under threat of  disappearance - Terrasanta

ArmInfo. After tens of thousands of Armenians fled from Nagorno Karabakh taken by Azerbaijani troops last September, now the churches, the crosses, the symbols of a thousand-year-old Armenian and Christian presence are also under the threat of disappearance, reads an article by Elisa Pinna posted on Terrasanta.net.

The article further reads: 

"The one hundred thousand inhabitants of the last Armenian enclave of  Nagorno Karabakh fled in a matter of minutes last September, when  Azerbaijani soldiers occupied their city, Stepanakert. They left  behind documents, clothes and their entire lives. Now they ask that  their memory be at least spared, as evidenced by the hundreds of  churches, chapels, kachkars (traditional stone crosses) that dot an  area inhabited since the 4th century AD by the community of Armenian  Christians.

""The Azeris have already begun to erase Armenian traces from sacred  places, in four months they have changed the appearance of about ten  churches in the last occupied territories¯, explains Archimandrite  Tirayr Hakobyan, representative of the Armenian Apostolic Church at  the Holy See in Western Europe.  Their method - denounces the  archimandrite - is to erase every writing, every symbol that could  suggest the millennial Armenian presence. Sometimes they replace the  words engraved on the stone with writings in the Albanian language,  belonging to the ancient Christian kingdom of Caucasian Albania,  which completely disappeared in the 6th century AD. (nothing in  common with Balkan Albania - ed.). On many occasions, after invading  and conquering much of Nagorno Karabakh in 2020, Azerbaijan has used  more brutal methods. It destroyed important churches, including the  cathedral of Shushi, vandalized monasteries dating back to the 9th  century, and pulverized stone crosses', reported the archimandrite,  at a meeting with some media outlets, including Terrasanta.net.

"The Christian religion is an integral part of the Armenian identity,  and erasing the symbols of faith cancels the individuality of a  people. Archimandrite Hakobyan speaks of a heritage of over four  thousand buildings and sacred objects, many of which are very ancient  and precious, throughout the disputed region, of which around a  hundred in the city of Stepanakert (Khankendi for the Azeris). Before  being definitively occupied, on 24-25 September 2023, the city  suffered an almost total siege that lasted ten months. The only  lifeline with Armenia had been closed by the Azeris, blocking  supplies. Finally came the army blitz, which forced the civilian  population to choose, in a few minutes, whether to remain under the  authority and laws of Azerbaijan or to leave Stepanakert immediately. 

"Videos shot a few days after the Azerbaijani conquest showed a city  inhabited by dogs looking for food, horses trotting alone in the main  streets, among bags, suitcases, strollers abandoned at the last  moment, probably because they did not fit in cars or trucks, on  tractors used for the mass exodus. The doors of the houses were left  open. Still Stepanakert, as a recent report by Al Jazeera shows, is a  ghost town, despite the attempts of the Baku government - states  Archimandrite Hakobyan - to convince Azeri Christians, a minority in  a Muslim country, to move to the former Armenian enclave."