The Saddest Liturgy
On the morning of September 18, 2010, our car took the highway from the city of Van to Bitlis and headed towards Gavash (Vostan) – a town of the historical Armenian province of Rshtunik. The first liturgy since 1915 was going to be conducted the next day in the Church of the Holy Cross (Surb Khach in Armenian) on Aghtamar Island in Lake Van. Our group included Gabriel Tchemberjian and his wife Angele from Syria, Dikran Jierjian with his French wife Julienne from Monaco and the Arab driver of the car. Arsen Yarmanyan, board member of the Holy Saviour National Hospital in Istanbul, a Kurdish English-language teacher from Van named Ozgür, and one Turk from Istanbul, as well as the captain of the boat (whom I see in Aghtamar every time) were waiting for us on the shore.
We were supposed to spend a day by Lake Van and visit several of the churches and monasteries on the shore, some of which are in ruins, some dilapidated, and some still stand partially erect. When we were boarding the boat, which was being gently rocked by the bluish-green waves of the lake, Arsen Yarmanyan, with his full head of white hair and black sunglasses, was holding his cigarette between his fingers and had spread a newspaper along the entire length of the narrow bench. The first thing that I noticed was the headline in Turkish, “Van manastırlarına ne oldu?”
Which means, “What happened to the monasteries of Van?”
To be precise, “Where are the monasteries and churches of Van?”
Where are they?
In the Turkish and Armenian pages of both the local Van Times in Turkish and Istanbul’s Turkish-Armenian Agos newspapers, Armenian architect Zakar Mildanoğlu had presented the 90 monasteries of the 13 towns bordering Lake Van. The names of all of the provinces and towns in historic Vaspurakan were mentioned on the map: Khorkhorunik on the northern shore of the lake, with Kajberunik neighbouring it, and then Aghyovit, Gnunik to the south-east of the lake, and Rshtunik and Mogk, in the south.
Our boat gently rocks and passes by Aghtamar Island. The Divine Liturgy is the next day, September 19, so it is pointless to waste time today visiting Aghtamar.
“We are approaching Arter Island. There is a small chapel here,” explained Yarmanyan.
Arter is one of the islands in Lake Van. It can also be seen clearly from Aghtamar. There are large and small islands in Lake Van.
The largest island is Lim – in the north-eastern section of the lake, about two kilometers away from dry land – the key cultural center of the Armenian kingdom of Vaspurakan. The Saint Grigorius monastery, which was constructed on the island in the beginning of the fourteenth century, is in ruins.
The second largest island is Ktuts, to the north of the city of Van. The Turks and the Kurds call it Chapranak. A monastic complex with four separate churches was constructed on the island in the ninth century. It is in ruins.
Aghtamar is the third largest but the best known, because of the Church of the Holy Cross.
The boat continues its pace floating on the bluish-green waves. Mount Nemrut is to the west of the lake and Sipan can be seen to the north. Clouds rest on its peak. The Tsaghkants Mountains are beyond Sipan. One of the peaks of the Armenian Taurus mountain range, Mount Artos, is to the south of Van, facing Aghtamar. Tradition has it that, on approaching this mountain, Noah wept, and that is why it is called Artos.
On the horizon, a large flock of birds fly into the air, leaving many black dots between the blue of the sea and the sky.
Our one-day excursion on the lake evoked both happy and sad memories.
The boat is in the middle of Lake Van. All around is blue, blue; only in the far distance can the silhouettes of mountains be seen.
The sea gently rocks the boat closer to the southern shore. A small church, Saint Karapet, has been waiting for us at a distance of about a hundred meters. It was constructed in a remote location: a forest at the end of an incline leading away from the lake. There are no other roads leading to the church other than the one from the lake.
Gabriel Tchemberjian entered the church and, breathing heavily, murmured the Lord’s Prayer. We joined in at the end, “…and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For Thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen.”
After searching for Armenian inscriptions on rocks scattered here and there, we descended to the lakeshore again. Perspiration on the one hand, and the desire to swim in Van on the other hand, forced the members of the group to swim in the clear, salty waters of the lake for a few of minutes. Dikran Jierjian was the best swimmer in the group.
Afterwards, the boat moved along the shoreline towards Saint Gevorg. It is obvious that the earth inside the monastery had just recently been dug up. As everywhere, the locals search for the gold the Armenians are supposed to have hidden. They are destroying everything, just to find the gold.
After finding a broken khachkar (cross designs carved in stone) or Armenian inscription, Gabriel Tchemberjian would call, “Come, take a picture of this one as well. Did you get it?”
But, dear God, which one should you take a photo of?
Which one?
There is Armenian writing under every stone, there is a church in every village, there are Armenian traces at each step. Even after a century there are so many Armenian things left to destroy in the region of Van.
The sun was tilting towards the mountains, to hide behind Sipan. Its rays hit the lake at acute angles, creating reflections on its waters. The Kurdish captain signalled; the group must return to the boat. We headed towards the formerly Armenian- populated, now Kurdish-populated, village of Inköy, where the church is preserved but has been turned into a stable.
Outsiders rarely visit Inköy. This is the reason why the children of the village run towards the shore and wave when they see foreigners. And when a car approaches the village, the children, sometimes even barefoot, run after it screaming.
The Kurdish villagers in Inköy give us cold tan (yoghurt diluted in water) and escort us to the church, which was not far from the shore. They were simple villagers. The village had probably never hosted so many guests before. After a short break, we boarded the boat.
The males of the entire village sent our group off. The children, wearing colourful and worn-out clothes, were standing in a long line and bidding us farewell, with their hands raised. Only at a fair distance from the shore did they all fit into one camera shot.
It was getting dark when our boat returned to the shore from which it had departed in the morning. We returned to our hotels in the city of Van, so that the next day we could once again head towards Aghtamar to participate in the liturgy or to write about it for all the Armenians scattered around the world.
Requiem for 1915
As Armenian clergy led by Archbishop Aram Ateshyan, the acting Armenian Patriarch of Constantinople (Istanbul),5 were ringing the bells and making their way from the half-destroyed bell-tower to the Church of the Holy Cross to hold a Divine Liturgy there for the first time in ninety-five years, several hundred, mostly Turkish-Armenians walked around the church, looked out towards the lake, lit candles, and cried.
An older man knelt before the church walls and silently prayed and cried with his eyes to the sky.
A middle-aged woman kept trying to light a candle but couldn’t, with her hands trembling as she cried.
Another woman walked between cracked khachkars lying here and there in the church yard and cried, her entire body shaking.
But the Church of the Holy Cross deserves more Armenian tears, more prayers, and more believers. Lake Van, its azure waves have long yearned for Armenian eyes.
By noon on September 19, only several hundred Armenians from Armenia and the Diaspora had arrived. The many who were expected to come but did not must have heeded the calls of Armenian authorities and the Armenian Apostolic Church (both the Mother See of Holy Etchmiadzin and the Armenian Catholicosate of the Great House of Cilicia, as well as the Jerusalem Patriarchate) who urged Armenians not to go to Aghtamar on this day, September 19, not to participate in a “Turkish show”.
The liturgy, conducted in the church constructed more than one thousand years ago at the foot of the dark, off-white cliff jutting out from Lake Van and surrounded by mountains, was the saddest liturgy I have ever attended.
But this was far from being a show. Anyone on Aghtamar that day felt the energy, the magnetism of the place that dominated everywhere on the island. This was no show. This was a collective prayer for the souls of innocent victims of 1915, even though Archbishop Aram did not specifically mention them.
That was the saddest liturgy I have ever attended.
The last time a liturgy at the Church of the Holy Cross was performed was in 1915, shortly before the final expulsion of Armenians from this area during the genocide. Ninety-five years later, a liturgy was heard.
On September 4, the Mother See of Holy Etchmiadzin announced that it will not take part in the Divine Liturgy because Turkish authorities have declined to place a cross on top of the church.
“The Mother See had been assured that the consecrated cross would be permanently placed on the dome of the church one week prior to the celebration of the Divine Liturgy in the Church of the Holy Cross. Taking into account the breach of the assurances provided regarding the placement of the cross, the Mother See of Holy Etchmiadzin-which was prepared to satisfy the request of the Armenian Patriarchate of Constantinople to send two representatives to participate in the Divine Liturgy-is suspending the participation of its representatives in the celebration of the liturgy at the Church of the Holy Cross at Aghtamar on September 19.”
Earlier, the Armenian Catholicosate of the Great House of Cilicia made a statement and informed the public that the Catholicosate will not send representatives. “In an attempt to convince the European Union and UNESCO that Turkey safeguards the cultural heritage of its occupied lands, the government restored the Holy Cross Armenian Church, but instead of keeping it as a church, transformed it into a museum,” the statement read.
The Catholicosate condemned this act as “an attempt to obscure its consistent policy of denying the Armenian Genocide and the rights of its survivors”. In the statement, the Catholicosate “calls upon all nations that advocate human rights to demand accountability from Turkey. The Catholicosate demands that the world community oblige Turkey to acknowledge that both in Western Armenia and Cilicia, occupied by Turkey, more than two thousand Armenian churches and monasteries have either been destroyed or converted into mosques or stables”. The statement concludes by reaffirming the Catholicosate’s commitment to justice, human rights, and genocide recognition, and by underscoring Turkey’s “obligation to restore the rights of its survivors.”
Diaspora media did not dispatch journalists to Aghtamar even though the Turkish Prime Minister’s office sent invitations offering to take up all of their expenses.
The governor of Van did all he could to ensure a larger turnout through the participation of local residents. During the liturgy, Muslim Turks and Kurds outnumbered Armenians several times over. Some of them came out of curiosity, others for a weekend getaway on the shores of Van.
The Church of the Holy Cross was built in the early tenth century in the times of Gagik the First Artsruni, King of Vaspurakan. Designed by architect Manvel, the church served as the residence of the Catholicos adjacent to the Artsruni court. Due to the politics of the period, five Catholicoses resided at Aghtamar during the tenth century.
As conditions in the Ararat valley more or less normalised, the Catholicos moved to the Church of Argina in Ani. Since then, Holy Cross was no longer a residence for the Catholicos of All Armenians. But to preserve that memory, Aghtamar’s clerical brotherhood continued to call their leaders Catholicoses.
The cross was placed a couple of weeks after the liturgy. However, the Church of the Holy Cross remains a museum.
The Turks have decided that the Armenians have the right to conduct liturgy in the Church of the Holy Cross just once a year.
This part is from Tatul Hakobyan‘s book – ARMENIANS and TURKS
