Obscure story around Sourb Khach cross:
Nezavisimaya Gazeta
13:28 • 20.09.10
The Sunday’s mass in Sourb Khach Church (Saint Cross) in Akhtamar Island on Lake Van
, eastern Turkey, was meant to demonstrate Turkey’s humanitarianism to the world, but Ankara efforts felt short of success, write Russian daily Nezavisimaya Gazeta (Independent Newspaper).
According to the daily the Turkish Government expected a couple of thousand visitors from Armenia and Diaspora that day to Van, but the overall number of the tourists attending the mass did not exceed a thousand.
A couple of months ago these expectations by Turkey might have been understood, but everything changed as it became clear that there would be no cross installed on the dome of Sourb Khach before the liturgy service.
“That is rather a shadow story: to renovate the church and not to manage to install the cross? The Turkish authorities pledged to restore the cross after the mass. The Armenians did not believe in that. Then a Turkish high-ranking official made a slip of tongue, saying that the dome had been constructed in a way during the renovation that [technically] it would be impossible to place a cross on it, and that to do so, the dome must be pulled down and rebuilt,” writes the paper.
Further Ankara offered to temporarily install a cross made of wood so that not to fail the mass. The Armenians did not agree. Eventually, the Turkish side brought a 200-kg cross to the island, but installed near the church.
“Van’s businessmen offered to pay for eliminating the dome’s that shortcoming and to have the cross installed, but words did not come into reality: it was either technically impossible to do, or the businessmen’s outburst had faced with insurmountable obstacles, tougher than the engineering ones,” writes Nezavisimaya Gazeta.
Further the paper mentions that as a result the Mother See of Holly Etchmiadzin, as well as many tourists, boycotted the mass which was served by the Constantinople Patriarchate of the Armenian Church, which does not want to spoil relations with the Turkish authorities.
The Sunday’s mass in Sourb Khach Church (Saint Cross) in Akhtamar Island on Lake Van
, eastern Turkey, was meant to demonstrate Turkey’s humanitarianism to the world, but Ankara efforts felt short of success, write Russian daily Nezavisimaya Gazeta (Independent Newspaper).According to the daily the Turkish Government expected a couple of thousand visitors from Armenia and Diaspora that day to Van, but the overall number of the tourists attending the mass did not exceed a thousand.
A couple of months ago these expectations by Turkey might have been understood, but everything changed as it became clear that there would be no cross installed on the dome of Sourb Khach before the liturgy service.
“That is rather a shadow story: to renovate the church and not to manage to install the cross? The Turkish authorities pledged to restore the cross after the mass. The Armenians did not believe in that. Then a Turkish high-ranking official made a slip of tongue, saying that the dome had been constructed in a way during the renovation that [technically] it would be impossible to place a cross on it, and that to do so, the dome must be pulled down and rebuilt,” writes the paper.
Further Ankara offered to temporarily install a cross made of wood so that not to fail the mass. The Armenians did not agree. Eventually, the Turkish side brought a 200-kg cross to the island, but installed near the church.
“Van’s businessmen offered to pay for eliminating the dome’s that shortcoming and to have the cross installed, but words did not come into reality: it was either technically impossible to do, or the businessmen’s outburst had faced with insurmountable obstacles, tougher than the engineering ones,” writes Nezavisimaya Gazeta.
Further the paper mentions that as a result the Mother See of Holly Etchmiadzin, as well as many tourists, boycotted the mass which was served by the Constantinople Patriarchate of the Armenian Church, which does not want to spoil relations with the Turkish authorities.
Tert.am
Posts
0 نظرهای شما:
Post a Comment