An article about Armenia has been published in the Italian journalist Silvana Pepe’s authoritative Credere magazine. 

Below we present the abridged version of the article:   

“Arat Mateyan tells that he risked his life every moment when going shopping out of the district controlled by jihadist groups in Aleppo. Finding provisions to survive was merely a struggle of life and death. Once the jihadists caught him and questioned for  a long time, inquiring whether he was from the opposite front. He explained that he was an Armenian, who had been living in Aleppo for many years and who was now trying to make both ends meet by re-selling food and wood, having no political “owners”.  

In the end, he had to leave Aleppo with his wife Talin and move to Yerevan, where they now live in the outskirts of the city. Arat is a 30-year-old engineer. His wife says they have lost everything in Aleppo, including the ice factory of their relatives – captured uncle and cousin – which was left in the territory controlled by the opposition, in Aleppo’s Shaykh Najjar district. Having no news from the captured relatives, a week later they received a death penalty video, which was accompanied by an announcement addressed to all the Christians. 

The Christian migration began. Prior to the war, 150,000 Christians lived in Aleppo, 80,000 of which were Armenians, who had found asylum there, having survived the genocide of 1915. They had their rich cultural heritage, the Forty Martyrs Cathedral (15th century)– now totally destroyed – being part of it.

20,000 Syrian Armenian migrants, 14,000 of which have decided to stay in Armenia, get the support of various international organizations, including UNHCR, Oxfam, Caritas, AGBU, as well as other institutions and Armenian Diaspora benevolent organizations, without which the government – even despite its readiness and will – wouldn’t perhaps have been able to address the needs of all the Syrian Armenians.  Many of them have set out without any belongings, taking only the Bible with them, and crossing the same heroic path which their ancestors passed.  This is the modern history of the people, who are looking forward to the visit of Pope Francis on June 24-26.

“This is an exceptional event for us, which will give us strength to manifest our Christian faith,” Etchmiadzin spokesman Father Vahram says.  

“Our centuries-old history is a history of martyrs, since we have always struggled for maintaining  our Christian values.” Referring to the Karabakh War, Father Vahram notes: “This is a war which is waged for our people’s defense and their right to live freely on the land of our ancestors.” Here the words of Pope Francis can be recalled: “This is a war period…We are witnessing piecemeal of World War…War is madness…a senseless bloodshed.” But will Pope Francis be able to stop that senseless madness?