The Provincial Hall of Turkey’s Malatya Province, which is the birthplace of Hrant Dink—the founder and former chief editor of Istanbul’s Agos Armenian bilingual weekly, who was gunned down in 2007 in front of his office building—already checked out the amount of money necessary for the restoration of the Province’s Holy Trinity Armenian Church.

This amount is allocated for the restoration of the Church and the renovation of several other structures. The respective decision, however, does not indicate the amount to be allotted for the Church’s restoration, Haberler news agency of Turkey informs.    

To note, the Holy Trinity Church of Malatya functioned until 1915, subsequently, it was used as a military storage until 1940, and then it was left to its fate.  

Hrant Dink himself had voiced the need to restore the Church back in 2002. And in 2010, the Tepebasi Foundation, which builds mosques, had expressed a desire to restore the structure, but this project did not materialize because of insufficient funding.      

And in February 2012, the Malatya Provincial Hall submitted a respective project to Sivas (Sebastia) Province’s Regional Council for the Protection of Cultural Treasures, and the Council approved this project. As a result, Turkey’s Culture and Tourism Ministry provided the necessary amount for the restoration of the Church, and included it in the list of Turkey’s buildings that need restoration.