Re NATIONAL ™ CG Nae (@ NY Ne] ee) DZ Peas are ema re THAT "FAIRE LAND GGLASS TREASURE FROM THE AEGEAN Ms ca cee) Carats? THE PROUD ARMENIANS 45 NATIONALThe Proud Armenians By ROBERT PAUL JORDAN Photographs by HARRY N. NALTCHAYAN Loving welcome by stor from the United tates right a the nin A scattered people who have survived ‘an now come fom allover the word to ‘a this remnant of thelr once vast ancer tral homeland, Reminder of the Christan faith that unites them, a ISthcentury church calendar secreted in a flaskike leather container below probably served ‘OST ARMENIANS fled Turkey Jong ago, but some ofthe villages they abandoned sill stand on the lonely reaches of the Anatolian highland. This one was typical—a cluster of flat-roofed stone huts stepping up ‘4 mountainside, dominated by the forlom shell of Christian church. Musi families wer tilling the step plotsand prayingto Al Jah at the appointed hour. Thad come here on spring afternoon in the company of an Armenian priest from I- tanbul, aquiet manof middle age. Forhimit ‘wasanactoffaith, and asadnes, Hispeople hhad been gone six decades, We watched Kurdish children playing in the dirt road. Otherpeople, he sad, had tak fen over many Armenian villages—Kurds haere, Turks elsewhere, His face wasimpas: sive! Land isto be used, people must live Leaving the stricken church, he touched Ihand to heart Such churches were common in Turkey, he murmured, prey to the ele- ments and vandals, ruins ofa civilization. ‘There were twoin the nearby city of Mala tya. We would soon be going to Malatya Another sorrow lay deep Ifeltitthough I 1am an odar—foreigner, in the Armenian language. The priest gripped my arm. Armenians ae still being driven from re- smote villages,” he said grimly. “It isthe old hatred. Sometimes ayoung gilis abducted, or a husband killed. They cannot bear to Say on their land after that. They make thei way tothe patriarchate in Istanbul. We give them shelter and find them homes, Tlooked out tothe distant Euphrates, not wanting to hear of such agony. The river was a glinting ribbon on its timeless run to Mesopotamia. The priest spoke again. “Once Armenians were heavily concen- trated in eastern Turkey. Only a few re ‘main, Inall the interior, only three churches are working. Malatya has none. Butsome of my flock are there, and much time has passed since my last visit. Tonight we will meet in a house.” He smiled for the first time. “You shall se the oy of Armeniansre newing thir faith, A few hours later, after darkness fel, the city’s few Armenian families filled a small living room to overflowing. The priest and his deacon, richly robed, led them in prayer and song in the dim glow ofa ceiling light, ‘while incense smoldered. Te was, I thought, as if a band of early Christians had gathered furtively in acave to worship. Children were baptized, Com: munion given. One aged, faling woman, searf on head, knelt with eats of happiness falling. Earlier she had despaired T sat with her afterward. "We are sheep without the shepherd, "she said. “Atlast the shepherd came—and he forgave me Forgave? Shehad broken the pre-Communion fastSnowy beacon through dark centuries ‘of Armenia's often rag story, the rum Bled presence of Mount Ararat lef looms ‘asthe symbolic her ofthe ancient nation. Cleary visible from Soviet Armenia, the ‘mountain iss within Turkey, where only {few Armenians sil dell In 1915 the Ottoman Empire, allied with the Cental Powers, embarked on amass deportation ofits Armenian minority, some of whom were collaborating with the enemy, Rus sia. Starvation and mass executions led {worthrds ofthe empire's Armenians. Khor Virap church, inside te Soviet border, marks the spot where Christian evangelist Gregory the Mluminator wat Imprisoned by Armenia’ pagan King Tir date I for several years prior to 301, At that time, legend el, demons turned the inginto pig, unt, inamoment depicted fon an illuminated manuscript from 1679 bove), Gregory cast cut the demons at the biding ofthe King’s ister, who kneel at Gregory’ left. Converted by hs cure, ‘Tirdats established Armenia a the fist Christa kingdom.