Turkey Opens Restored Armenian Church

Abandoned since the slaughter of Anatolia's Armenians more than 90 years ago, Turkey's best-known Armenian Church was reopened March 29 after undergoing a high-profile restoration. Ankara hopes the highly publicized gesture will improve tense relations with Europe, the United States and neighboring Armenia.

The restored church reopened as a museum. The midday ceremony on Akdamar, a craggy island on eastern Anatolia's vast Lake Van, came two months after Turkey's most outspoken Armenian, journalist Hrant Dink, was shot dead in Istanbul. [For background see the Eurasia Insight archive]. http://www.eurasianet.org/departments/insight/articles/eav020107.shtml The event also occurred amid continuing European Union pressure on Turkey to improve its civil rights climate, [For background see the Eurasia Insight archive] and as the US Congress prepares to consider a resolution to recognize the mass killings of Armenians in 1915 as genocide. [For background see the Eurasia Insight archive].

Heading a 20-strong delegation that arrived in Turkey via Georgia due to the closure of the Turkish-Armenian border, Armenia's Deputy Minister of Culture Gagik Gyurjyan sounded a conciliatory note. "This is an important step for our two countries", he told reporters on the island.

Patriarch Mesrob II, the spiritual head of Turkey's dwindling Armenian community, was the guest of honor at the high-security event, which included a concert and a brief fireworks display. "It is a joy to see the church restored to its original grandeur", he told approximately 200 dignitaries seated in front of the 1,100-year old, octagonal structure. At a time of high tension in Turkey, he congratulated the government for "courageously completing the project." The restoration cost Turkey $1.9 million. [For background see the Eurasia Insight archive].

Despite the positive words, controversy seemed to hover over the restoration/reopening event. It showed itself indirectly in the ceremony's patriotic undercurrent: speeches, for example, were preceded by a rendering of the Turkish national anthem. And as they approached Akdamar Island on boats, visitors - many of whom were foreign journalists invited by the Turkish government - saw a huge Turkish flag draped along one of the island spurs long before the church silhouette came into view.

Speaking against a backdrop of flags and a portrait of the founder of the modern Turkish state, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, Turkey's Culture Minister Atilla Koc called for the protection of "the cultural diversity and assets of the different cultures and civilizations in our lands" without mentioning Armenia or Armenians by name.

Patriarch Mesrob was more outspoken, chiding Turkey for turning Akdamar into a museum. "We all know Aghtamar is a church", he said, using the Armenian pronunciation of the island. "An annual Divine Liturgy that could be celebrated in this church... would gather believers from the four corners of the world."

The secular nature of today's ceremony prompted Catholicos Karekin II, the Yerevan-based Armenian supreme patriarch, to reject a Turkish invitation to attend the ceremony. For several weeks prior to the opening, Turks had been debating the lack of cross on the apex of the church's octagonal dome. "There's no need for a cross on a museum," today's Turkish newspapers quoted Koc as saying. Critics, meanwhile, pointed to the church's original name - the Holy Cross.

There are indications that the Turkish government has not made a final decision on whether to permit the installation of a cross atop the church. Turkey's Ministry of Culture and Tourism has sought input from the Foreign Ministry on the cross issue, Today's Zaman, a Turkish news website, reported March 29.

Religious leaders invited to the ceremony seemed inclined to let the omission go. "Buildings are built stone by stone, and friendships too" said George Marovitch, Papal Nuncio to Turkey. "But you cannot love what you do not know, and Akdamar is an important start."

With the investigations into the Dink murder still continuing, it is far less clear how the church's restoration will influence opinion among Turkey's 60,000 Armenians. "Only two things are keeping the Armenian community going -- this newspaper, and the hope that Hrant's killers will be brought to justice," said Etyen Mahcupyan, who took over as editor of the weekly Agos after Dink's death, said in a recent interview.

Sitting around a table in the Istanbul suburb of Yesilkoy a few days before the Akdamar ceremony, a group of a dozen Armenian Turks of all ages largely concurred. When they heard Dink had been murdered, they said, they feared it might be the start of a pogrom like the one in 1955 that ended Greek presence in Istanbul. "All the teachers at my school dropped what they were doing and ran home", said one young woman who - like everybody else - spoke on condition of anonymity. A middle-aged woman nodded in agreement - "I rang my kids and told them to get off the street," she said.

Always close followers of the Turkish media, Armenians everywhere watched with dismay the nationalist reaction to the huge crowd that turned out for Dink's funeral. "Am I living in the same country that I was born in", Patriarch Mesrob II said in one of two uncharacteristically outspoken interviews with Agos recently.

Following the arrest of two young men who fired shots into the air as mourners congregated in a church to mark the 40th day of Dink's death, Armenians have been upping security around their community buildings. For the Yesilkoy Armenians, Dink's death and what followed signaled the end of "the illusion" that outside pressure was transforming Turkey for the better.

"We have two choices," said one 52-year old woman; "Keep our heads down and our mouths shut, or leave. I would leave tomorrow, but like everybody here I have relatives who left Turkey, and none of them are happy."

"The first generation in exile is a lost generation."

In Yerevan, the Armenian Foreign Ministry applauded the Church restoration, but indicated that the lack of a cross atop it diluted the impact of Turkey's goodwill gesture.