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.”