Artsakh Diocese of Armenian Apostolic Church responded to L`Osservatore Romano publication

ArmInfo. The Artsakh Diocese  of the Armenian Apostolic Church responded to the publication in the  official Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano, pointing to a new  attempt to distort and appropriate the Armenian cultural heritage of  Artsakh.

The Artsakh Diocese noted that the recent publication in the official  Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano is a service rendered to the  Azerbaijani propaganda machine, another attempt at a completely false  and groundless presentation of the history of the spiritual and  cultural heritage of the region and its indigenous Armenian people.

"Having visited the territory of the occupied Republic of Artsakh,  the author tried to give new life to the "myth of the Albanian  genealogy" of the Armenian cultural heritage.

Before publishing such propaganda material, the author should have  first tried to at least briefly familiarize himself with the  political events that took place just a few months ago, their  motives, and then with the real history of Dadivank, Gandzasar,  Khatravank, and try to understand what language the inscriptions are  in or why they are in Armenian. Such false and baseless propaganda is  a completely reprehensible and disrespectful attitude not only to the  Armenian people, the centuries-old history of the Armenian Apostolic  Church, but also to the history of the world Christian civilization  as a whole," the Artsakh Diocese emphasized.

Earlier, Lilit Galstyan, a member of the opposition parliamentary  faction "Armenia", stated that Azerbaijan continues the policy of  vandalism, destruction or appropriation of the cultural heritage of  Artsakh. At the same time, she added that in this "activity" of  theirs, the Azerbaijanis have found international partners and,  unfortunately, their hands have already reached the Vatican.

According to her, the Vatican's l'osservatore romano periodical  recently published an article entitled "The Origins of Christianity  in Azerbaijan: Following the Footsteps of the Albanian Apostolic  Church" signed by Rossella Fabiani, in which the author talks about  her so-called research and educational visit to "Caucasian Albania",  but in fact to Artsakh.

"Referring to some local researcher, the author of the article  spreads and confirms the hypothesis of the arrival of Armenians in  the region, noting that we came to the Azerbaijani lands from Iran  and Turkey.  According to another confirmation, local Armenians  forced the Udis to renounce their faith and they became followers of  the Apostolic Church.

During his visit to Azerbaijan, R. Fabiani was accompanied by  Akhundov's student, the "expert" in Albanian culture S. Gadzhieva.  And, naturally, the author makes an unconditional conclusion that in  the 13th century, the monastery complexes of Dadivank (in the  article, Khudavank is used) and Gandzasar (in the article, Genjasar)  are the largest manifestations of Albanian culture and the Albanian  church on the territory of Azerbaijan.

As you can see, the Azerbaijani policy of eradicating the Armenian  trace of Artsakh is acquiring new qualities and manifestations. It is  sad, but this is reality: Azerbaijan has managed to make the Vatican  an unwitting participant in its cultural cleansing (cultural  genocide). By the way, in the above-mentioned article, Dadivank is  presented as the Albanian Vatican," the deputy noted.