Armenian Genocide Remembrance Day is on April 24, which this year fell on a Sunday.

Four Armenian churches in the southeast Wisconsin area — including Racine’s two Armenian churches and two from Milwaukee — gathered at St. Hagop Armenian Church, 4100 Newman Road, to commemorate with a full Divine Liturgy.

Deacon Levon Saryan said to commemorate the occasion, the Holy Communion was prepared with the Armash Chalice, which dates to 1820 and was named for the Holy Mother of God Monastery at Armash (located outside of Istanbul) where it came from.

The chalice is in a private collection in Milwaukee. Saryan said the owner was gracious and allowed the chalice to be used for the service.

“It was a very moving service,” Saryan said. He added that church members gathered together afterward for fellowship.

He added there was a lot of good feeling among the attendees, who seemed relieved the pandemic was behind them, so they were able to meet again in fellowship.

Historians generally date the start of the Armenian genocide to April 24, 1915, the day around 250 Armenian intellectuals in Constantinople (now Istanbul) were seized and taken to holding camps. Few of those who were seized survived long.

Ottoman Empire leaders seized the intellectuals believing, that if the Armenian people were deprived of leadership, it would be more difficult for them to organize and resist religious oppression.

Outside of Constantinople sat the Armenian community of Armash, where there was a monastery and seminary to train priests for the church, an important center for Armenian religious life.

During the genocide, the community of Armash was seized and sent on a death march across the Syrian Desert. The monastery and seminary were looted, destroyed and the location was used for a new mosque.

The exact figures are not known, but historians estimate 1-1.5 million died as a result of the forced marches across the Syrian Desert. Those left behind, primarily women and children, were forced to adopt Islamic religion and culture.

One belonged to Saryan and the other to Chuck Hajinian, a member of St. John the Baptist Armenian Church in Greenfield, who has family ties to Racine.

Both men are collectors of Armenian artifacts and together they purchased the chalices as part of a collection of historic items from an estate sale.

Saryan and Hajinian researched the chalices and discovered both dated from the 1800s and were donated to the Armenian seminary of Armash, located outside of Istanbul, in the 19th century.

While they aren’t certain of what happened to the chalices following the genocide, initially the collectors theorize the chalices eventually reached the antiques market in Europe, Saryan said.

However, with further research, Saryan said it was also likely that a priest was able to procure them and they stayed in his family. “It’s hard to know.”

He and Hajinian purchased them from the estate of another Armenian collector.

Both Saryan and Hajinian said from an emotional standpoint, that they feel the chalices belong to the monastery and the Armenian people.

For that reason, Saryan donated his chalice to the Armenian Church in New York City, the headquarters for the local churches. From there, the archbishop took the chalice to Beirut, Lebanon, and donated it to the Armenian Museum.

Few elected officials addressed Armenian Genocide Remembrance Day this year. Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, R-Rochester, was one of them. His statement, issued Sunday, is as follows:

"Today, April 24, is the day to remember the 1.5 million Armenians murdered by Turkey before during and after World War I.

The Armenian Genocide was the Ottoman government's systematic extermination of 1.5 million Armenians, mostly citizens within the Ottoman Empire. The starting date is conventionally held to be 24 April 1915, the day that Ottoman authorities rounded up, arrested, and deported from Constantinople (now Istanbul) to the region of Ankara, 235 to 270 Armenian intellectuals and community leaders, the majority of whom were eventually murdered. The genocide was carried out during and after World War I and implemented in two phases—the wholesale killing of the able-bodied male population through massacre and subjection of army conscripts to forced labor, followed by the deportation of women, children, the elderly, and the infirm on death marches leading to the Syrian Desert.

Driven forward by military escorts, the deportees were deprived of food and water and subjected to periodic robbery, rape, and massacre.

Millions murdered.

Turkey says it never happened.

The Armenian genocide occurred during the twilight of the Ottoman Empire, which allied itself with Germany during World War I. After their ill-fated invasion of Russia, Turkish leaders became suspicious of the empire's Armenian Christian minority and began a years-long persecution.

Armenian leaders in Istanbul were detained, deported and killed on April 24, 1915 — widely considered to be the beginning of the genocide — and the campaign spread from there. Hundreds of thousands were killed, and others were forced from their homes on long marches into the Syrian desert, where many more died.

Never Forget…"

President Joe Biden last year became the first U.S. president to actually refer to the genocide as a "genocide." On Sunday, he issued another statement in memory of the 1.5 million Armenians “who were deported, massacred or marched to their deaths in a campaign of extermination” by Ottoman Empire forces.

Turkey responded by claiming Biden’s declaration was ”incompatible with historical facts and international law.”