INAUGURATION OF HOLY CROSS CHURCH ON AKHTAMAR IS "CULTURAL GENOCIDE"

PanARMENIAN.Net
30.03.2007 18:22 GMT+04:00

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ "This is the day of the opening of a "church-museum",
which the Minister of Cultural Affairs turned into a mess. Whatever
the intention was, it looks like a "cultural genocide". The Ministry
has renamed the 1000-year-old Armenian capital "Ani", and also removed
the cross and the bells from the Holy Cross Church on Akhtamar which
it renamed as "Akdamar" (which means ‘white vein" in Turkish.) This
obsession with renaming, the cultural and religious intolerance shown
towards the cross and the church bell might well be perceived in the
world as a "cultural genocide"; nobody should be surprised if that
turns out to be the case," analyst Cengiz Candar writes in Turkish
Daily News. According to the analyst it is an absurd not putting a
cross and a bell onto the renovated church.

"Who will believe that you are secular, or that you "respect all
faiths", or that you represent "the alliance of civilizations against
the clash of civilizations. What you do is "cultural genocide".

The analyst of Turkish Daily News reminds the last editorial of
Hrant Dink, where he wrote, "The opening of the restored Holy Cross
Armenian Church of Akhtamar Island has turned into a comedy. The
Turkish government restores an Armenian church in the Southeast, but
only thinks, "How can I use this for political gains in the world, how
can I sell it?" They shot Hrant on the day this article was published,
the newspaper reminds.