TURKEY AND THE ARMENIAN ATROCITIES

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[page 145]

CHAPTER VIII.

OTHER ORIENTAL CHURCHES.

The Syrian Church Divided into Syrians, Chaldeans, Nestorians, Jacobites, and some Roman Catholic Bodies — The Jacobites — Patriarch of Antioch — Condition of Villagers — Jebel Tur Region — Nestorians — Patriarch of Babylon — Badir Khan Bey — Chaldeans — The Copts of Egypt — Maronites and Druzes.

In the provinces of Mesopotamia and Kurdistan in Eastern Turkey we meet with comparatively few Armenians or Greeks, but large communities of Syrian Christians are numerous. The Church of Syria is the oldest of all the churches founded among the Gentiles. It was for centuries renowned for its theologians, its schools of learning, and for its activity in spreading the Gospel into the remote empires of Asia. The remnants of it which are found to-day in Eastern Turkey are but melancholy wrecks of a church once so flourishing and aggressive. Like battered hulks on an unfriendly shore, they bear witness to the fierce storms which have overtaken them in the progress of time; storms now of internal dissensions, now of violent theological controversies, and now of cruel persecutions and decimating international wars. Here on these fields of once great ecclesiastical activity have met in protracted struggle for supremacy Roman and Persian legions; here Mongols and Tartars have enacted terrible

[page 146] NUMEROUS DIVISIONS.

scenes of massacre; Saracens and Kurds too have swept over the land, leaving wasting and destruction in their paths, and here now, in later centuries, the Turk has set his terrible iron heel, as if to crush out the feeble remnant of the Christian name altogether.

The numerous divisions into which this famous church is now disintegrated is as much a cause for lament as is its prostrate state under its conquerors. Syrians, Chaldeans, Nestorians, Jacobites, Syrian Papists, are names of separate and, in a degree, antagonistic bodies which the traveler meets at different points as he journeys from Aleppo to the Persian boundary. Each sect owns allegiance to some chief bishop or Patriarch of its own, each holding a different creed or ritual, and there is no intercommunion between any of them. The Patriarch of the Jacobites is resident at Mardin, of the Chaldeans at Mosul, of the Nestorians still farther east in the heart of the Kurdish Mountains. Zealous though these all are for their inherited creed and ritual, the form of Christianity we meet among them is by no means an ideal one. The ancestral organization remains. Rites and ceremonies as handed down from the early fathers are observed with a blind superstitiousness. There is a staunch grim loyalty to the Christian name, in the face even of much persecution for the name’s sake. But traces of genuine spiritual life are rarely to be found among them. Their ancient missionary zeal, which carried their priests and bishops throughout Persia, Tartary and into China, has long since given way to a night of stolid indifference as to the spiritual fate of even their nearest neighbors. The struggle for self-preservation taxes to its absolute limit all their present religious ambition. And when we turn to find, if may be, some evidence that their ancient

[page 147] THE JACOBITES.

learning may have survived the catastrophe that has extinguished all but a name to live, we discover that, too, has perished with the rest. Their language, once aglow with devotion and religious thought, is long since dead. Their clergy are sunk in deepest ignorance. The Syrian fathers were eminent as authors of commentaries and hymns, grammars and lexicons, but the highest attainment of a modern scholar among them is to be a good copyist of the old books and to repeat the vocabularies and grammars of the mediaeval times with slavish devotion to all their oddities and errors.

But each of these particular bodies has a history and conditions peculiar to itself that deserve a separate consideration.

The Jacobites cling proudly to their ancient name of Syrians (“Syriani” ) as we shall see do also the Nestorians. But both have become better known by the names derived from their great theological leaders. The Jacobites are so called from Jacobus Baradeus, a monk, who in the sixth century checked the tide of desolation caused by the Emperor Justinian’s persecutions, revived their declining church, and, with almost incredible zeal, spread the faith throughout Syria and Mesopotamia. He established the Patriarch of Antioch as their supreme head, who styles himself to this day as the successor of St. Peter. Their attachment is strong to the belief that theirs is the ancient Church of Antioch where the followers of Christ were first called Christians. As there are two other Patriarchs, of the Greek faith, who make the same claim, there are no less than three prelates who bear this title, “ Patriarch of Antioch.”

The Jacobites hold to what is known as Monophysite doctrine, the oneness of the divine and human natures in Christ.

[page 148] ANCIENT GLORY.

They have been estimated as some 250,000 souls in number, but it is far too large a calculation. Turkish statistics, however, are of no practical value for correctness. Their chief centres of population are Mardin, Diarbekir, Aleppo, Urfa, Jezireh, Mosul, and a district in the western mountains of Kurdistan, named Jebel Tur. In their common speech they use the Arabic, the language of their Moslem conquerors, but in their church services they adhere to their much revered ancient Syriac tongue. The church books are of distinguished origin and of venerable date.

In the height of their ancient glory the Jacobite Church embraced 159 bishoprics. Now, there are scarcely a score.

It once boasted of twenty-one monasteries. Of these but two are even occupied so far as is known. It is in one of these, the monastery of Zafaran, near the city of Mardin, where the Patriarch of the Jacobites has his residence. Here, perched high upon the rocks in a most commanding position, surrounded at a distance by lofty and precipitous crags, and near at hand by hillsides covered with vineyards, orchards and gardens, has been the patriarchal abode for some eleven centuries, except for two brief periods when the Kurds have seized it for uses of their own. The late Patriarch had visited England in recent years and through assistance received he restored a part of the famous old monastery and enlarged it, and had established a fine printing press, which the Turks, however, did not allow him to use.

The support of the monastery, with its score or two of monks, comes in part from their own fields, in the cultivation of which the clergy of the church, and the Patriarch himself, take an active share, and in part from contributions of the villages lying between Mardin and Jezireh.

[page 149] SPIRITUAL APATHY.

The Patriarch is recognized by the Turkish authorities as having the right to exercise a measure of control in the civil affairs of his spiritual subjects. His people at least look up to him as their spokesman in time of trouble from the government, and he is expected to act as mediator between the two. The bishops of the church in their respective localities are also allowed something of the same authority. But they are a broken reed to lean upon as against the organized oppression practised under Osmanli rule. They are, indeed, themselves often the victims of the same relentless bondage. The very manhood of this once noble, energetic race, is well-nigh crushed out of them by the contumely and oppression to which they have been subject for centuries. The pity of a Western visitor mantles his face with a blush as he witnesses the cringing demeanor of these Syrian dignitaries of the Church in the presence of some Mohammedan lord, even when for the nonce the Pasha or Agha may treat them with courtesy and kindness. Yet in the presence of sympathizing Christians from Europe, it is surprising to note the manly, dignified bearing of these same men. When we come down to the common villagers, their condition is, as we might expect, pitiable in the extreme. Their moral and spiritual apathy is painful to observe, and added to this is their extreme industrial and financial distress, chargeable to successive famines and a pitiless government. In their times of greatest want and desperation, the government never diminishes aught of its exactions. Pharaoh’s demand of the same tale of bricks without straw is repeated over and over again. It would seem at times as if the rulers had entered upon a settled policy to stamp out the entire Christian element of the population. In evidence of this we might cite the obser-

[page 150] THE AGHAS.

vations of recent very intelligent travelers through Mesopotamia. One speaks of passing through a number of ruined villages that showed how the process of depopulation had been carried on. The large stones in their buildings, the remains of well-built churches, and the large tracts of land that had once been terraced for vineyards, gave evidence of former thrift and prosperity. The legitimate taxes alone are exceedingly heavy, but they are often duplicated, or back taxes are claimed. All these additional burdens, with and without the knowledge of the central authorities, are laid upon the people, driving them almost to distraction. Abuses through unjust and corrupt assessment, extortion in collection, farming out the taxes, and the demands of petty landlords and soldiers, simply defy description. The people are largely in the hands of Aghas. These are the remnant of the feudal system of Turkey, descendants of the feudal lords, who became proprietors of the soil by virtue of a grant from the Sultan. The proprietorship has ceased, but the Aghas have their retainers, and exercise lordship over the people by force of arms. Each village is obliged to choose its Agha, and it is supposed to receive protection from him. But it is like setting a wolf to guard the sheep.

The Jebel Tur region, of which Midyat is the chief town, has long been the stronghold of the Jacobite Church. It is now gradually dying out under the crushing process practised by the Turkish authorities. To one familiar with the history of the place in the past twenty-five or thirty years, the change that is going on is distressingly apparent. Not only are mortgages upon fields and vineyards on the increase, but there is a decrease of stock with which to work them. The area of uncultivated land around the villages enlarges, and the

[page 151] NESTORIANS.

number of unkempt vineyards multiplies. Further marks of the business stagnation are seen in the dress of the people, and in the declining scale and style of living among all classes of the population. And if other evidence is asked for, it is found in the considerable numbers of families who have been obliged to go elsewhere in search of a living. The town of Sert furnished striking illustrations of this process, even before the massacre in 1850.

Thus we find repeated in the social and industrial conditions of this ancient Jacobite community the same proofs we have seen to prevail elsewhere throughout the empire, of the utter indifference of the Turkish Government to the well-being of its Christian subjects, if not of its covert intentions to gradually efface them from off the land.

Let us turn now to the other large division of the Syrian Church, known as Nestorians. They are sometimes spoken of as “ Chaldeans,” and again as “Assyrians.” But for neither of these names does there exist any sufficient warrant either on historical or geographical grounds. They recognize no appellation for themselves except “ Syriani.” Their chief bishop claims for himself the title of “ Patriarch of the East.” But they will always be best known to the world as “ Nestorians.”

When Nestorius, from Antioch, being Bishop of Constantinople, was condemned by the Council of Ephesus, in the year A. D. 431, for his alleged heretical opinions regarding the Person of Christ, the “ Church of the East,” with its headquarters at Seleucia-Ctesiphon, warmly espoused his cause. They were consequently cut off from communion with the Western Church. Located so far to the East, beyond the reach of the persecuting acts of the Byzantine powers, they

[page 152] TAMERLANE.

enjoyed unusual liberty, and used it with enthusiasm to extend their faith at home and in remote lands. The growth of their church is one of the brightest and most interesting chapters in the annals of Christianity. By its wonderful missionary enterprises churches were planted from Egypt to China, and from north of the Caspian Sea to the southern bounds of India. The flourishing church in Persia was of their founding. It is admitted that they were the most numerous body of any of the then existing Christian churches. Nor were they conspicuous for their missionary zeal alone. Their schools, where Biblical theology and medicine were taught, were famed throughout Christendom. And when the Arabs became the patrons of science and learning, these Nestorian scholars opened to them the lore of the Greeks, and were allowed positions of honor and influence at the courts of Haroun Al Rashid and other Caliphs, at Bagdad. Under the Persian and Mongol rulers, this church, eminent as well for its liberality of opinion and catholicity of spirit, as its aggressive efforts, continued to flourish, despite seasons of severe persecution. But towards the close of the fourteenth century a terrible storm burst upon it. It was then that Timour, or Tamerlane, emerged from the far East, and swept the lands occupied by these Syrian churches as with the besom of destruction. His Mohammedan zeal added fury to his inhuman efforts to exterminate every trace of the Christian faith. He was far too successful.

The Patriarchal seat was removed from place to place in quest of a safe retreat. It is probable that about this time, in consequence of these desolating conditions, large numbers of these Christians found refuge from the tempest in the secluded fastnesses of the inhospitable mountains of Kurdistan, where they still dwell. A considerable portion of this people

[page 153] PATRIARCH OF BABYLON.

are still found in Persia. The whole number in Turkey and Persia is probably about 100,000.

In the sixteenth century there arose unfortunately a schism in the church, resulting in the establishment of two Patriarchs, both holding to the same creed. One of these made Mosul his residence. In recent years a large body of this section of the Nestorian Church has conformed to the Roman Catholic Church, and is known as the “ Uniat Chaldean Church,” under a Patriarch, called the “ Patriarch of Babylon.” But in the earlier division mentioned, the larger portion of the Nestorians living in Kurdistan and Northwest Persia, accepted the Patriarch Mar Shimun as their head, who established his residence in an Alpine village, among the Kurdish mountains. His successors always take the same dynastic name of Mar Shimun, and for nearly four hundred years have made their home among-these lofty crags and precipitous ravines. Where the valleys broaden out into wilder areas, the various tribes have built their villages, and through the centuries have maintained their national existence and their ancient faith at serious odds as against their neighbors and foes. The most important of these villages are Tiari, Tkhoma, Jelu, Bas and Dis. These Christian mountaineers are called “Ashiret,” or tribal Syrians, while those living outside the mountains proper are called “Rayahs,” or “ Rayats,” subjects. The Ashiret are semi-independent, and pay only a nominal tribute to the Turkish Government. The Rayahs are the prey of Turkish despoilers and Turkish exactors to a degree that makes life miserable. That the Turkish Government is either unable or indisposed to afford them protection from the Kurds is the substantial ground on which the Ashiret refuse submission to the constitutional authorities. The practical serfdom of their

[page 154] KURDISH LANDLORDS.

Rayah brethren is before their eyes every time they step out on the hills and plains. They are largely in the hands of the Kurdish landlords, or Aghas, as are the Syrian Christians of Jebel Tur, already described. They are taxed to the starvation point. Their houses are miserable quarters for human habitations. They are mercilessly robbed and even murdered by the Kurds. Appeal to the government officials is seldom of avail; for these are either Kurds themselves or are surrounded by Kurdish gentry, once themselves the rulers of the country, whom it is the government’s policy to placate now, as much as possible. Quite in contrast is the independence of the Ashiret, under their Maleks, or chiefs. They always go armed, are bold and warlike, and no Turkish officials or soldiers enter their tribal districts except with their consent.

Though possessing only the old-fashioned flint locks, they are often a match for the Kurds, who are armed generally with Martini-Henry rifles. Yet it is only by the most fierce defense of themselves that they have maintained their freedom against the sanguinary Kurds. And it is not strange that they sometimes betray the same wild traits of character as their hereditary enemies. But despite their desperate stand for freedom and the fear in which the Kurds regard them, they have suffered terrible assaults, which threatened at the time to utterly exterminate them. Such was the case in the terrible massacres perpetrated on them by the bloodthirsty Kurdish Chief, Badir Khan Bey, in 1843. By bringing an overwhelming force successfully against Tiari and Tkhoma he succeeded in almost annihilating their populations. Layard, the British explorer of Nineveh, and subsequently Minister and Statesman, who was in the mountains both before and after these occurrences, has described the inhuman slaughter

[page 155] CRUELTIES OF KURDISH CHIEFS.

of the people of Tiari and Tkhoma in their homes, and the destruction of their churches and sacred books. In Tiari, after an indiscriminate slaughter of a crowd of assembled fugitives, tired of butchering, and knee-deep in blood and mangled carcasses, the Kurds forced the survivors at the point of the dagger to leap down a precipice on the rocks below. Not less than a thousand persons here perished. Mr. Layard visited the fatal spot in 1846 and described, with graphic pen, the terrible evidences still remaining of the awful transaction. The patriarchal residence in Dis was also sacked and the blood of nearly eight hundred, of both sexes, stained its valleys. The leading men were assassinated at a council to which they were invited to settle terms of peace. The Patriarch himself had escaped beforehand, but his aged mother was slain and her mangled body dragged to the river Zab, her murderers exclaiming as they threw it in, “ Go, carry the news to your accursed son.”

The story of the cruelties of the Kurdish Chiefs of those days will never perish from the legends of the Nestorians. It should be said, that under the pressure from the European Government the Turks sent a force against Badir Khan Bey, and he was captured, but the only punishment inflicted on him was banishment to the Island of Candia. There can be little doubt, however, that the Kurds were encouraged by the Turks in their nefarious job, with a view to the subjugation of these Independent Christians.

Every few years since these events, there have been reasons to fear a repetition of the Kurdish atrocities perpetrated by Badir Khan Bey and his fellow-fiends. In July, 1888, one of the summer encampments of the Tiarians, occupied chiefly by the women to care for the products of their flocks, while

[page 156] DANGERS AND SUFFERINGS.

the men are engaged in their little fields in the valleys below, was overpowered by a band of Kurds, who killed the few men at hand and outraged the women. The Christians were desperate for revenge. But a force of 8,000 Kurds promptly assembling, there was imminent danger of their falling upon the Christians in a general massacre. Speedy representations through the English and American missionaries led to energetic action on the part of the foreign Consuls which compelled the Turks to force the Kurds to retire.

But in the absence of any such general outbreak of Turkish fanaticism and outrage, the oppressions of the Christians whenever in the least exposed to their enemies are of incessant occurrence. The Patriarch, Mar Shimun, wears a sad, weary countenance, as the tales of wrong and injustice practised on his people are daily poured into his ear. Robberies, outrages and murders are on the increase; the bishops and chiefs, and even the Patriarch and his family, are continually exposed to insults and indignities at the hands of Kurdish chiefs. It is no great wonder that he believes, as most of the Kurds confess to believing, and observant travelers are compelled to the same conclusion, that the policy of the Porte is to allow the Christians to be impoverished and exterminated by the Kurds, provided that this is done so covertly that European nations shall not be aware of it.

The Patriarch’s appeals for some sort of protection for his distressed people, which come to the ears of American and English friends, are truly affecting. And yet, even to these he scarcely dares to speak his mind fully. He receives a stipend from the Porte. The Turkish officials near him, at Van and Julamerk, keep a sharp watch over all he does. So, when his most trusted friends from Christian lands visit him,

[page 157] CHALDEANS.

he speaks to them in bated breath, and glares around in fear lest somehow what he may say shall reach the ears of his suspicious guardians, and the charge of treason be brought against him. Can any one imagine a more pitiable position for the head of this once renowned and widespread branch of the Christian Church ?

The Syrians on the plain of Mosul are known as “Chaldeans,” whether the larger body of them, who have conformed to the Church of Rome, and are under the spiritual jurisdiction of the so-called “ Patriarch of Babylon,” or the feebler community under the Bishop Mar Elias Melus, who have strenuously resisted union with the Romish Church. The Chaldeans in the city of Mosul are many of them merchants, fairly prosperous, as things go in that part of Turkey. The Rassam family, distinguished in the English explorations at Nineveh, are Mosul Chaldeans. A powerful Roman Catholic establishment in the city affords considerable protection to its own adherents. But the condition of the Chaldean villagers is much the same as that of the Jacobites and Nestorian Rayahs already described. They are often little else than the serfs of the Kurdish Aghas. And the oppressions are increasing from year to year. There can be little question that unless a thorough system of reforms is introduced, the whole region will soon fall into the hands of the Kurds. Yes, there is one other alternative which would bring them relief. If they would give up their faith, they might receive as efficient protection as their Moslem neighbors. But in all their poverty in things spiritual, as well as temporal, living in abject terror from day to day, they cling to their Christian faith as to their ancestral homes with a devotion that should compel admiration and the assistance of the Christian powers.

[page 158] TWO WELL-KNOWN FACTS.

The blame that rests upon the Turkish Government for its chronic inefficiency in regard to these, its dutiful Christian subjects, is made apparent in the strongest light by two now well-known facts. The first is, that the Christians in Persia, also a Moslem Government, in precisely similar conditions, though the victims of much oppression from Kurds and Mohammedan Aghas, live in greater security and ease than their brethren in Turkey. The second fact is, that in the recent outbreaks against the Armenians of Turkey, the Governors of Mosul and Mardin, under the most imperative orders from Constantinople, repressed all attempted assaults upon the Christian population of those cities by the most rigorous measures. It clearly shows what the government might have done in other towns to protect the Christians if it had wished to do so.

It is due to say that the Sultan directed the Vali of Mosul to proclaim that the reforms which had been granted to the Armenians were to extend to all the Christian nationalities alike. The explanatory telegram was sent subsequently to say that these promised reforms were simply those allowed by his grandfather. It would be a joy to all classes — Jacobites, Nestorians and Chaldeans — if they could indeed go back to the brighter days of thirty years ago. Every year but envelops their fate in direr gloom and hopelessness.

Of the other Christian sects in the Turkish Empire the most important are the various branches of the Greek Church, those connected with the Roman Catholic Church, and the Copts of Egypt. The various branches of the Greek Church have already been described in a previous chapter. The Copts in Egypt are the descendants of the ancient Egyptians. They number about 500,000. They live almost entirely in

[page 159] MARONITES

the towns, and furnish the greater part of the clerks, accountants and general administrative officers in the government. They are also to a considerable extent farmers and land owners, and have risen especially under the English administration. They are an intelligent class, and were it not for the oppression that they have endured from the past centuries they would be far stronger than they are. They form one branch of what is known as the Monophysite Church, akin to the Armenians and Abyssinians. They preserve their old language in their liturgy, but the language of daily life is entirely Arabic. The hierarchy with them, as with other Orientals, has been strongly conservative and oppressive, bitterly opposing every effort to educate and raise the people. Of late years, under the influence of the missionaries of the United Presbyterian Board of the United States, there has been an earnest effort to secure a better condition of things. This, however, has not succeeded to the extent that was hoped, and still the bishops and priests are a great obstacle in the way of intelligent laymen who desire the reformation of the church.

The principal community connected with the Roman Catholic Church is that of the Maronites. There are also Chaldeans and Armenians in some considerable numbers, passing under the name of the United Syrian and Armenian Churches, or Uniats. The Maronites number about 250,000, and are scattered all over the Lebanon and ante-Lebanon ranges in Syria. They are found especially in the northern districts, where they have complete control of local affairs. They also extend south to Mt. Hermon, in the heart of the Druze country, and they have always been on hostile relations with the Druzes. They take their name from their first Patriarch and political leader, John Maron, who lived in the latter part

[page 160] MONOTHELITES

of the seventh century, and under whose influence at the time of the various ecclesiastical controversies they declared themselves Monothelites. They then occupied the plains chiefly, but afterwards, under the invasion of the Saracens, fled to the mountains, and there maintained their independence for a long time. At that time they used Syriac in all their services and in their social life, and developed a feudal system with a sort of theocratic government, their head being styled “ The Patriarch of Antioch and all the East.” At the time of the Crusades they were brought to the knowledge of Christendom, and about the middle of the twelfth century opened communications with the Pope at Rome. They gradually adopted the Arabic language as their vernacular, and at the Council of Florence were received into the Roman Catholic Church. They were, however, allowed to retain their Syriac liturgy, the celebration of the communion in both kinds, the marriage of the lower clergy, their own fast days and their own saints. Little by little the power of the Pope over them was strengthened. A special college was given them at Rome, and schools for clergy and printing presses were established in Syria. A Papal legate was sent to Beirut, and the Maronites became most submissive followers in the Latin Church.

They first came prominently into the notice of the rest of the Christian world in connection with the famous massacres in 1860, in which thousands of them were butchered by the Druzes. The result of this was the redistricting of Syria under European intervention and the formation of the province of Mt. Lebanon under the rule of a Christian governor. At present they are a frugal and industrious people, mostly illiterate, except where schools have been established

[page 161-illustration]

Bridge of Boats across the Lower Tigris

[caption] BRIDGE OF BOATS ACROSS THE LOWER TIGRIS. Over the boats, which are of the very simplest construction, are laid poles, and over them rushes, the whole making a somewhat uncertain platform. In the foreground is a greyhound, such as are rather common in Eastern Turkey.

[page 162-illustration]

Village of Reed Huts in Lower Mesopotamia

[caption] VILLAGE OF REED HUTS IN LOWER MESOPOTAMIA, together with a group of Arabs. These are not regular Bedouin Arabs, but belong to another tribe. These villages are found throughout the region south of Bagdad and in the neighborhood of Babylon.

[page 163] UNITED ARMENIAN CHURCH.

under the pressure of the influence of Protestant missions. They have many monasteries and guard as specially sacred the famous group of cedars at the head of the gorge of the Holy River, where is the summer home of their Patriarch. Under the influence of the American missions the Jesuits and Lazarists have exerted themselves to keep their hold upon the young men. They have established a fine school for boys and have a large college at Beirut and fine library with very complete scientific apparatus. The American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions commenced work among these people early in the present century and it is now carried on by the Presbyterian Church. The distinctive Protestant community is not large, but has a very powerful influence, and the Syrian Protestant College at Beirut, with its medical department, has done very much to develop a better life among all these people.

At the same Council of Florence in 1439 that gathered the Maronites under the care of the Roman Catholic Church, there was formed a United Armenian Church, consisting of a number of Gregorian Armenians, who felt that it was best for the interests of their people to cease their separation from the Western Church. They have, however, not grown in numbers to any great degree, and are chiefly known through their monastery at Venice, which has been foremost in the development of Armenian literature. They are strongest in Constantinople and on the seaboard, though there are some congregations in the interior. They are as a rule looked upon by the Gregorian Armenians with more suspicion even that the Protestants, on account of their political relations with the French Government.

Acknowledgements:

Source: Bliss, Rev. Edwin Munsell . Turkey and the Armenian Atrocities. Edgewood Publishing Company , 1896
Provided by: Aram Arkun, Krikor and Clara Zohrab Information Center
Scanned by: Karen Vrtanesyan
OCR: Irina Minasyan