Azerbaijan presses on to claim Dadivank Armenian monastery

Azerbaijan presses on to claim Dadivank Armenian monastery

PanARMENIAN.Net - Azerbaijan presses on to claim the Armenian monastery of Dadivank, according to a video posted by Cavid Aga, an Azerbaijani columnist and social media personality living in Turkey.

According to him, the Christian community of the Udi people travelled to Kelbajar district to pray and have a liturgy ceremony in the monastery on Friday, December 4.

However, when the Armenian clergy told them they will only be permitted in without cameras, they decided to pray outside the building, which may be an indicator that the pilgrimage was not a spontaneous event but was organized and implemented by the Azeri authorities.

In a since deleted reportage by AzTV, the people gathered in front of the monastery were allegedly praying in Russia.

Armenians fear that multiple historic churches in the region are seriously threatened after significant chunks of territory were ceded to Azerbaijan under a trilateral statement signed by Armenia, Azerbaijan and Russia on November 9. Besides Dadivank, the ruins and the archeological site of Tigranakert, Ghazanchetsots Cathedral in Shushi and hundreds of other historic monuments will be left to Azerbaijan. At the moment, Russian peacekeepers have been deployed to the area near Dadivank to ensure the safety of both the church and the perishoners. Azerbaijanis, meanwhile, have already destroyed the domes of Saint John the Baptist Church, commonly known as Kanach Zham (Green Chapel), in Shushi, which has come under Azerbaijan's control in the recent war.

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