Karabakh pilgrims visit Dadivank a week after being barred by Azeris

PanARMENIAN.Net - Fifteen pilgrims from Nagorno-Karabakh were able to visit the medieval Armenian monastery of Dadivank on Sunday, February 14, Zvezda TV reports.

The temple came under Azerbaijan's control following the 44-day war in Karabakh in fall 2020. Armenian believers, however, can visit the site again under the protection of Russian peacekeepers deployed to the area since November.

The Sunday's pilgrimage came a week after an incident between the Russian peacekeepers and Azeri troops, who barred churchgoers from entering the monastery on February 7.

A group of pilgrims, as well as clergymen who were supposed to replace those serving on the monastery, set off from Stepanakert in the early hours of February 7. But although the group were accompanied by Russian peacekeepers, they were not allowed to enter the building.

The Azeri troops said they had not been informed about the visit and ordered the pilgrims to wait in a nearby village before they make clarifications, the report says. However, when the group and the peacekeepers returned to the church after three hours, they were banned from entering again, with the Azerbaijanis revealing that they have an order to prohibit the entry of not only the pilgrims, but also clergymen. After lengthy negotiations, the group had to return to Stepanakert in the evening.

During the recent military hostilities, Azerbaijani forces launched two targeted attacks on the Holy Savior Ghazanchetsots Cathedral in Shushi. After taking control of the city, they destroyed the domes of Saint John the Baptist Church. Azerbaijan earlier "restored" a church by replacing its Armenian inscription with glass art.

Concerns about the preservation of cultural sites in Nagorno-Karabakh are made all the more urgent by the Azerbaijani government’s history of systemically destroying indigenous Armenian heritage—acts of both warfare and historical revisionism. The Azerbaijani government has secretly destroyed a striking number of cultural and religious artifacts in the late 20th century. Within Nakhichevan alone, a historically Armenian enclave in Azerbaijan, Azerbaijani forces destroyed at least 89 medieval churches, 5,840 khachkars (Armenian cross stones) and 22,000 historical tombstones between 1997 and 2006.