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Consecration of an Armenian Khatchkar (Armenian: cross-stone) - the gift of the Armenian Government to the United Nations - was held Wednesday at the UN Headquarters in New York.

The event was attended by Permanent Representative of Armenia to the UN, Ambassador Zohrab Mnatsakanyan, Primate of Armenian Church of America, Archbishop Khajag Barsamian, representatives from UN member states, UN Secretariat and mass media, public figures, diplomats, representatives of the Armenian community, other distinguished guests and journalists.

In his remarks, Ambassador Zohrab Mnatsakanyan said that that cross-stone carved in 12-13 centuries symbolizes Armenian nation back to the UN Headquarters. The Ambassador further noted that in 2010 UNESCO declared the Armenian Khatchkar as tangible world cultural heritage in need of urgent safeguarding. He also reminded that in 2005, hundreds of Khatchkars were barbarically destroyed in a 15 hundred-year-old Armenian cemetery of Jugha, presently located in Nakhichevan, Azerbaijan. According to him, Armenian history was full of phases of destruction and annihilation, and a devastating calamity 100 years ago in the Ottoman Empire; however, he concluded that like those stones, Armenians bare resilience, faith and eternal love for life, Armenia’s MFA press-service reports.

The event was also attended by Dr. Helen Evans, Metropolitan Museum Curator for Byzantine Art at the Department of Medieval Art and The Cloisters, who elaborated on the origins of that Khatchkar from the Geghard Monastery.

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