1,000-year-old church is being restored

[Hovik]

Dallas Morning News , TX
Aug 20 2005

1,000-year-old church is being restored

04:37 PM CDT on Friday, August 19, 2005

By SELCAN HACAOGLU


AKDAMAR ISLAND, Turkey - Rainwater seeps through the conical dome of
Akhtamar's thousand-year-old church, washing away biblical frescoes
from one of the finest surviving monuments of ancient Armenian
culture. Bullet holes pock the sandstone walls.

After a century of neglect and decades of political wrangling,
Turkey has begun to restore the church. The renovation comes as
Turkish leaders face pressure from the European Union to improve
their treatment of minorities.

The $1.5 million restoration, ordered and paid for by the Turkish
government, began in May. It is raising hopes that a small, cautious
thaw in relations between Turkey and neighboring Armenia could expand.

The church is the lone building on a tiny island in a lake. It is
covered in scaffolding, as masons replace fallen roof stones to stop
rainwater and rebuild the basalt floor dug out by treasure hunters.
Experts also will try to restore the frescoes in the interior.

"This is our positive approach, our message," said Turkey's prime
minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who has staked his rule on winning
membership in the EU.

The European Union urged Turkey last year to consider registering
Akhtamar in UNESCO's World Heritage List and is urging the country
to reopen its border and re-establish diplomatic ties with Armenia.

Turkey has taken cautious steps toward improving connections with
Armenia, and a member of Mr. Erdogan's political party visited its
capital this year. But relations remain cool because of animosities
over ethnic bloodletting a century ago.

Eastern Turkey was once a heartland of Armenian culture, and more
than a million Armenians lived there at the turn of the 19th century.
They were driven out - Armenia says it was a policy of genocide by
Turks, the Turkish government denies that was the case.

Akhtamar, called the Church of Surp Khach, or Holy Cross, was one of
the most important churches of those ancient Armenian lands.

It was built by Armenian King Gagik I of Vaspurakan and inaugurated
in A.D. 921. Gagik's historian described the church as being near
a harbor and a palace with gilded cupolas, peacefully surrounded by
the lake. Only the church survived.

By 1113, the church had become the center of the Armenian Patriarchate
of Akhtamar and an inspiration to mystics in the area. The island
was the center of a renowned school of scribal art and illumination.

The region was a thriving center of Armenian culture but was engulfed
in ethnic conflict as the Turks' Ottoman Empire splintered at the
end of World War I.

Akhtamar has been empty for decades. Some of its reliefs are stained
with paint and eggs thrown by vandals. Bullet holes, apparently from
shepherds who used the site for target practice, mar the walls.

The church is considered one of the most important examples of
Armenian architecture.

Elaborate reliefs project up to 4 inches from brownish-red sandstone
walls, almost like sculptures. Some depict biblical stories, such
as Jonah being swallowed by the whale and Daniel in the lion's den.
Others show cows, lions, birds and other animals to remind worshippers
that the church is an image of paradise.

Mr. Erdogan's government asked the Armenian Christian patriarch in
Istanbul, where nearly all of Turkey's remaining 65,000 Armenians live,
to name an architect to help with the restoration.

Zakarya Mildanoglu, the architect picked, said he hopes the restoration
helps improve relations between Armenia and Turkey, but he added:
"We need to be patient. Things that happened a century ago cannot be
healed overnight."

[Gavur]

Haunted By History; Ani, A Disputed City

The Economist
June 17, 2006
U.S. Edition

Efforts to excavate and conserve a little-known historical site are
snarled up by regional rivalries

The ruins of a contested capital are still hostage to geopolitics

WHATEVER you think about ghosts, it is hard to speak of this desolate
plateau on Turkey's eastern edge without using the word "haunted". A
millennium ago, Ani rivalled Byzantium as one of the great cities
of the Christian world. At its height, the Armenian capital had
over 100,000 inhabitants. Now all that stands is an impressive wall,
and the gaunt but beautiful remains of churches and mosques randomly
scattered across a vast expanse of grassy earth. On a hot day in early
summer, with flowers blooming and birds swooping through the ruins,
the place is utterly empty.

Ani's location at one of Eurasia's nodal points, where rival
civilisations either clash or co-operate, has been both a blessing and
a curse. The "silk route" linking Byzantium with China ran through
it. But less than a century after it became the Armenian capital in
961, the city began falling victim to waves of conquerors, including
Seljuk Turks, Georgians and Mongols. In 1319 it was devastated by
an earthquake.

Even as a ruin, Ani has been a disputed city. In 1921 when most
of the site was ceded to Turkey, the Armenians were dismayed. They
have since accused the Turks of neglecting the place in a spirit of
chauvinism. The Turks retort that Ani's remains have been shaken by
blasts from a quarry on the Armenian side of the border.

Turkey's authorities insist that they are doing their best to conserve
and develop the site. "By restoring Ani, we'll make a contribution
to humanity," says Mehmet Ufuk Erden, the local governor. "We will
start with one church and one mosque, and over time we will include
every single monument." The culture ministry has listed Ani, with
an Armenian church on an island in Lake Van, among the sites it is
keenest to conserve. For a country that was reluctant, until recently,
to accept the cultural heritage of non-Turks, this is a big change.

But some scholars say more is needed. "Piecemeal restoration is no
substitute for a master plan for Ani as a whole," argues Stefaan
Poortman of the Global Heritage Fund, a California-based conservation
group that helps to manage endangered historic sites. And making a
master plan for a site straddling two countries is impossible unless
they co-operate. Could it happen? In September, some 14 Black Sea
countries hope to meet in Istanbul to dicuss their cultural heritage.

So Turks and Armenians will get a chance to talk about Ani, if
history's ghosts can be exorcised.