Ankara, Turkey - The head of the Armenian Orthodox Church, Karekin II, has refused to attend a reopening ceremony of a restored Armenian church in eastern Anatolia because the church will operate as a museum but not as a church.
The Armenian Orthodox Church released a written statement yesterday and brought to mind that the invitation for the ceremony on March 29 [tomorrow] for the reopening of the ancient Akhtamar Church was extended by Van Governor Mehmet Niyazi Tanılır to Karekin II, whose official title is Catholicos of All Armenians, via the Armenian Foreign Ministry. Karekin II will not participate in the ceremonies after having considered that “the Holy Cross Armenian Church, recently renovated by the Turkish authorities, will not operate as a church under the spiritual authority of the Armenian Patriarchate of Constantinople and instead will be designated as a museum, and that the opening ceremonies will be conducted solely with a secular program and not in accord with the canonical rites of the Holy Apostolic Armenian Church,” the brief statement said.
“In this new century, when there is a universal desire for mutual understanding and collaboration between peoples, as well as in the context of dialogue between religions and cultures, this action of the Turkish authorities against the pious Christian beliefs and emotions of the Armenian people cannot be perceived as a positive step on the path of bringing the two nations closer,” the statement added. Karekin II, who had paid a week-long visit to the Armenian community in Turkey last year in June, in the past angered Turks by saying their ancestors committed genocide against Armenians around the time of World War I, an allegation vehemently denied by Turkey. Turkey, which has no diplomatic relations with Armenia, denies that Turks committed genocide, saying Armenians who lived in the Ottoman Empire were killed in internal fighting among ethnic groups as the empire collapsed.