TURKEY RESTORES ANCIENT ARMENIAN CHURCH AS MUSEUM, ARMENIA CALLS ON TURKEY TO REOPEN BORDER
Linda Young – All Headline News Staff Writer

All Headline News
March 30 2007

Ankara, Turkey (AHN) – At a ceremony marking the restoration of the
historic Akdamar Church the spiritual leader of Turkey’s Armenian
Orthodox community on Thursday issued a call for Turkey to open the
ancient Armenian church to worship. Patriarch Mesrob II said that
authorizing at least one worship service annually in the ancient church
would help heal the rift caused by the mass slayings of Armenians by
Ottoman Turks around the time of World War I.

Turkey and Armenia do not have diplomatic ties, but 70,000 Armenians
still live in Turkey and the Turkish government invited a delegation
from Armenia to the ceremony.

The head of the Armenian Apostolic Church declined an invitation
to speak because the structure will not be used for worship, BBC
news reported.

The Akdamar church was originally built between 915 and 921. The
Turkish government restored it, at a cost of $1.5 million, to use as
a museum and cultural center.

"Our request from our government is for a religious and cultural
service to be held at the church every year and for a festival to be
organized," Mesrob said, the International Herald-Tribune reported
on Thursday.

"If our government approves, it will contribute to peace between
two communities who have not been able to come together for years,"
he added.

The Armenian government has said although it appreciates the
restoration of the church that it would prefer to have the border
between the countries opened. That border was closed in 1993 because of
a war and the economy of landlocked Armenia has suffered as a result,
the International Herald-Tribune reported.

The sandstone church is perched on a rocky island in eastern Turkey.

Over the past century the condition deteriorated, it was looted and
riddled with bullet holes.