Gardman-Shirvan-Nakhijevan Pan-Armenian Union appeals to Pope Francis

YEREVAN, OCTOBER 19, ARMENPRESS. Gardman-Shirvan-Nakhijevan Pan-Armenian Union, an organization comprised of representatives of Armenians of the historical Gardman, Shirvan and Nakhijevan, has appealed to Pope Francis to make Azerbaijan embrace religious tolerance.

In a statement, the organization commended the Pope’s October 15 statement regarding Nagorno-Karabakh. Speaking after Sunday's Angelus, Pope Francis recalled the crisis in Nagorno-Karabakh and the serious humanitarian conditions affecting the displaced. He also appealed for the protection of the monasteries and places of worship, expressions of faith and signs of fraternity.

“The Pope’s special call for the protection of monasteries and places of worship reports to the whole world that the entire Armenian Christian culture of Nagorno-Karabakh, the monasteries, churches and cemeteries are under the most real danger of destruction and desecration. This concern perhaps wouldn’t be this real and imminent if not for the bitter historic experience of the not-too-distant past,” Gardman-Shirvan-Nakhijevan Pan-Armenian Union said.

It said that over the course of 100 years, the Armenian ethnic element and Armenian cultural presence in Gardman, Shirvan and Nakhijevan was subjected to ethnic cleansing for at least three times through massacres, pogroms, forced displacement and cultural genocide.

The organization cited the massacre of 30,000 Armenians in Baku in 1918, the forced displacement and genocidal manifestations against Armenians in Baku, Sumgait and Kirovabad and other Armenian-populated settlements in 1988-1992, the destruction of the Armenian cemetery in Julfa, as well as the vandalism committed in Nagorno-Karabakh after Azerbaijan took control both after the 2020 war, as well as after September 2023 in the entire territory of NK.

“These crimes are aimed not only against the Armenian element, but the entire Christian World, because in this era of tolerance and mutual understanding, the religious and racial discrimination and hate should be unacceptable. We, as representatives of the Armenians of the historical Gardman, Shirvan and Nakhijevan, as those struggling for the restoration of our violated rights, are asking the Pope to use his good will and opportunities to force Azerbaijan to embrace the perceptions of religious tolerance and supreme legal and human values, because only that way it is possible to ensure interreligious dialogue and mutual respect in the civilized world," the union said.