The Armenian Christmas was celebrated Monday at Saint Giragos Church in Diyarbakir (Tigranakert), Turkey. 

Famous Armenian musician Yervant Bostanci—who had returned to his place of birth, Diyarbakir, from the US—, Church Council Secretary Gaffur Turkay, tourism consultants, journalists, and many others attended the Christmas mass at the church, Demokrathaber website of Turkey reports.       

The 1,400-seat-capacity Saint Giragos Armenian Church of Diyarbakir was built in 1376 in the city’s Hancepek district, where a large number of Christians lived up until the Armenian Genocide. Ever since the 1980s, however, the church was left to the mercy of fate. Subsequently, a group of Istanbul-based Diyarbakir Armenians established the Saint Giragos Fund to restore the church. The Armenian fund and the Diyarbakir City Hall covered 70 and 30 percent, respectively, of the $2.5 million-worth restoration costs.