Turkey 'giving' historical Armenian monuments to Georgia - debate

Officials from Armenia’s Public Council on Wednesday voiced alarm about Turkish intentions of giving 300 churches of Tayk, a historical province of Western Armenia, as a gift to the Georgian state.

The monuments, dating from 5th-11th centuries, are located in Greater Armenia’s 14th province. In 2011, Turkey declared them as pieces of the Georgian architecture.

“The architecture of Tayk is the exact reflection of the Ararat valley’s architecture, with one of the monasteries repeating the Echmiadzin monastery’s plan with precision. These are huge monuments and big complexes,” Vaahan Ter-Ghazaryan, a member of the Council’s Committee on Religion, Diaspora and International Integration Affairs, told reporters.

Jasmen Asryan, a member of the same committee also attending the news conference, said the churches (whose total number is 2,000) turned into Chalcedonic places of warship under Byzantine pressures but never lost their Armenian identity. ‘The liturgies and rituals in the Armenian chalcedonic church were served exclusively in the Armenian language, not Georgia or Greek,” she said, considering the churches genuine samples of Armenian civilization.