The World Council of Churches has called on UNESCO to ensure religious and cultural monuments – including historic churches – are protected in the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region.
In a letter dated 23rd November and addressed to the HE Audrey Azoulay, the director-general of UNESCO, Rev Prof Dr Ioan Sauca, interim general secretary of the WCC, referenced a statement from the body’s executive committee in which it urged UNESCO “to take all possible and appropriate measures to protect” holy and cultural heritage sites in the region, which has been at the centre of a conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan.
A woman holds her baby covered with her coat next to an icon at the Dadivank, an Armenian Apostolic Church monastery dating to the 9th century, as ethnic Armenians leave the separatist region of Nagorno-Karabakh to Armenia, on Saturday, 14th November. PICTURE: AP Photo/Dmitry Lovetsky/File photo.
“Our concern for the religious and cultural heritage of the region, specifically in the areas newly under Azerbaijani control, is greatly heightened by the repeated shelling of the Ghazanchetsots Cathedral in Shushi that occurred on 8 October, and especially by the numerous reports we are receiving of other more recent desecrations,” Sauca wrote in the letter.
He said it appeared that Azerbaijan “has already started rewriting the cultural history of Nagorno-Karabakh/Artsakh and that Armenian churches will be reassigned to others or will be turned into mosques” and noted that Azerbaijan “had already destroyed the ancient and very important cemetery of Julfa in Nakhichevan”.
Sauca cited statistics showing there were an estimated 4,000 historical, religious and cultural monuments in the areas of Nagorno-Karabakh/Artsakh now under Azerbaijani control, saying each of them had a “powerful spiritual and cultural legacy to impart”.
“The loss of this heritage would be an irreparable loss for the whole of humanity…” he wrote.
Sauca urged UNESCO to “take all possible and appropriate measures to protect these sites on the affected territories” and said the WCC welcomed a proposed mission to draw up an inventory of the most significant cultural assets as a first step.
The Armenian Apostolic Church (Mother See of Holy Etchmiadzin) and the Armenian Apostolic Church (Holy See of Cilicia) are both among the WCC’s more than 350 church members.
Under a Russian-brokered deal, Armenia is now in the process of surrendering land held for almost 30 years to Azerbaijan. Thousands were killed in the six week conflict which broke out in late September.
