YEREVAN, JULY 31, ARMENPRESS. In the year of the centenary of the mass killing of Armenians at the hands of the Ottoman Empire, the tiny island of San Lazzaro degli Armeni assumes particular significance. Formerly a leper colony, it was the gift of Doge Alviso Mocenigo to Mekhitar, an Armenian monk fleeing persecution in Constantinople. He arrived in 1717, with 20 followers, to found a monastery dedicated to the cultural and spiritual renaissance of the Armenian people. This Mother Church of the Mekhitarist order has become a symbol of survival, and an important centre of Armenian scholarship. Armenpress reports the latter referring to the article of the British “The Independent” dedicated to San Lazzaro degli Armeni.

The article mentions that even Napoleon, no friend to monasteries, was impressed, and in 1797 he designated San Lazzaro an Academic Institution, saving it from the axe. Today, just 12 vardapets (learned monks) and five novices remain as custodians of 200,000 books, 4,500 rare manuscripts, and a disparate collection of esoteric treasures.  For all its curiosities, the soul of the monastery resides in its three libraries: from the magnificent Monumental Library, whose pear-wood bookcases contain rare European tomes spanning every subject, through Byron's Room, and on to the circular Manuscript Room, which houses one of the world's most important collections of Armenian manuscripts, including Gospels created in 862 for Queen Melket. Most importantly, the library also holds early Armenian translations of ancient texts – such as works by Philo, Hesiod and St John Chrysostom – whose originals had been lost but were translated by the monks into Latin and thus revived.

 At the top of the ornate wrought iron "Staircase of Mekhitar", the work of home-grown artists hangs along one of the corridors leading to monks' cells; the aquiline features of Armenian dignitaries in Ottoman dress stare soulfully from the walls.

"If the Scriptures are rightly understood," wrote Lord Byron back in 1817, "it was in Armenia that Paradise was placed." Indeed, if you visit San Lazzaro in summer, you can sample the monks' rose-petal jam, which is made from the flowers in the monks' own private Eden.”, concludes the article.