THE CROSS OR THE CRUCIFIX?

THE CROSS OR THE CRUCIFIX?

Approximately 250,000 to 300,000 Armenians were being forcibly displaced from Jugha during 1604-1605. Most of them were eventually relocated to Iranian Azerbaijan, where they joined the Armenians who had already established themselves there. Those who were affluent and hailed from Julfa were particularly sent to Esfahan, the Safavid capital, where they were provided with preferential treatment. The Safavids controlled all of what is now Iran, Azerbaijan, Armenia, eastern Georgia, parts of the North Caucasus including Russia, and Iraq, as well as parts of Turkey, Syria, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan. They were of Kurdish origin but the exact origins of the name Kurd are unclear!

In 1648, according to the French traveller Alexandre de Rhodes, the Jugha cemetery was having 10,000 well-preserved khachkars when he visited Jugha. According to Wikipedia, the Julfa cemetery known as Jugha in Armenian in the late 1990s, when the government of Azerbaijan began a systemic campaign to destroy the monuments. was callously eradicated to negate Armenians century’s old presence in this region. Only 5,000 were counted standing in 1903–1904. The cemetery had been described as the most visible material evidence for Julfa’s glorious Armenian past the until the end of the 20th century. The Armenians who lived in Julfa were primarily members of the Armenian Apostolic Church. UNESCO designated the site as a World Heritage site in 2008, recognizing its cultural significance and calling for its protection.

Noratus cemetery in Armenia is currently the largest surviving cemetery with khachkars following the destruction of the khachkars in Old Julfa, Nakhichevan. The oldest khachkars in the cemetery date back to the late 10th century. Armenian archaeologists and experts on the khachkars in Nakhchivan stated that when they first visited the region in 1987, prior to the breakup of the Soviet Union, the monuments had stood intact and the region itself had as many as “27,000 monasteries, churches, khachkars, tombstones” among other cultural artifacts. By 1998, the number of khachkars was reduced to 2,700.

THE FIRST CHRISTIAN CROSS STATE

A khachhar is a carved, memorial stele bearing a cross, and often with additional motifs such as rosettes, interlaces, and botanical motifs. It’s not the crucifix including the crucified Christ; or a cross that includes a corpus-a Jesus’body. Only a few of a particular type of khachkar in which on the cross is a depiction of the crucified Christ was known and most date from the late 13th century. Each cross-stone has its own pattern; each one has its own story which goes back to the depth of ages. No nation in the world has employed such a powerful and long-lasting way to express its faith to God.

Armenia was the first country in the world to adopt Christianity as a state religion. This only Christian nation erected these types of monuments for their faith. Armenians hold that Christ is only one person in whom two natures coexist, one human and the other divine. The Catholic Church itself separated definitively, recognizing in him only the divine nature. Armenia’s new capital, Ani now a few meters from the Turkish border was called “the city of a thousand churches”. Armenians were a minority in many of the places where they lived. A portion of them constituted the commercial elite in the most important urban centers.

They act as a focal point for worship, as memorial stones and as relics facilitating communication between the secular and divine. The 2000 UNESCO ordered demanding its protection, in what has been termed “the worst cultural genocide of the 21st century”. The earliest datable khachkar was erected at Garni by Queen Katranide, wife of King Ashot Bagratuni I, in 879 in mediation for her person. The high point of khachkar creation was between the 12th and 14th century.  This craftsmanship can still be witnessed today in Yerevan.  Over 40,000 khachkars can be seen today.

ARMENIA’S STONE AMBASSADORS

The Guardian said:

“After decades of plunder, less than 3,000 khachkars remained. It is chilling. Satellite research shows that, in 2003, the uneven, textured landscape was dotted with multiple small structures. By 2009, it is flattened and empty. Local researcher Argam Ayvazyan, now exiled in Armenia, photographed 89 Armenian churches, 5,840 khachkars, and 22,000 tombstones between 1964 and 1987 – which the report states have all disappeared”.

Nakhichevan was where the Persians, Armenians, Mongols, and Turks all competed for control. Today, it is internationally recognized as a constituent part of Azerbaijan. Located in the Azerbaijani enclave of Nakhichevan, on the banks of the Araxes river, it was the site of a medieval necropolis, the largest ancient Armenian cemetery in the world. Visitors through the centuries, from Alexandre de Rhodes to William Ouseley, had noted the remote location’s splendour.

The 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh ceasefire agreement was an armistice agreement that ended the Second Nagorno-Karabakh War. Armenia lost roughly 72% of the territories in and around Nagorno-Karabakh that it controlled prior to the war. Khachkars are now located in Turkey, Azerbaijan, Georgia and Iran as result of ancient Armenia. Armenian khachkars have been acquired or donated to many museums or temporarily represented at significant exhibitions all around the world such as at the British Museum, the Metropolitan Museum of Art or the Special Exhibition of the National Museum of Ethnology, Osaka, Japan. An ornamental basalt cross or Khachkar, carved before the Mongolian Conquest of 1238, found at Lori Berd, a fortress in northern Armenia; was on 2018 loan at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York from the History Museum of Armenia, Aravan.

WORD STUDY

1. Aim At Something/Aim For Something

–        Focus one’s attention on a target: Aiming at a bird, he squeezes the trigger for a shot.

–        Make a hope for: These workers are aiming for higher paid job.

2. Alive To Something/Alive With Something

–        Be aware or conscious of: They were alive to many risky factors in doing business.

–        Be teeming with or full of: The river is alive with so many tales about alligators.

3. All Dressed Up/Dressed Up

–        Formally dressed or dressed in one’s best clothes: Most of the guests have been all dressed up in the party.

–        Dressed in disguise or fancy: The audience got amazed at such of the parade’s dressed up roles in the carnival.

4. All In All/In All

–        Taking everything into consideration: All in all we are about to complete the project.

–        Seizing the most importance: How to deal with the case looks all in all to us as the last resort.

–        In total number: He asked how many days in all you had taken for this venture.

5. All The Best/All The Better

–        As a closure to a statement: They tried a plan aimed at changing the whole case; but it availed nothing at last. They stopped it not for good and were reported to go on with another. All the best!

–        Even more so: Reading the news needs not only focus in depth but also data for the better.

6. Amoral Behavior/Immoral Behavior

–        Showing an utter absence of morality: In spite of a sane mind on what is right or wrong some antisocial persons have lived as psychopaths in disguise.

–        Showing a low or corrupt standards: The younger can be easily allured into living as the sumptuously awarded stars.

7. Ancient World/Old World

–        Used to imply religion or civilization: Until now archaeological facts haven’t been enough explored to confirm what the ancient world would have been.

–        Used to mean customs, traditions already known through written history: The New World Order as a weapon of sophistry and casuistry to obliterate the Old World.

8. Answer Someone/Answer To Someone

–        Say something as a response: He looks too skeptical to answer the question correctly.

–        Take responsibility for something: No one could answer to exposing who has been waging so many paradoxical wars in the world.

9. Anxious About Something/Anxious For Something

–        Feeling uneasy or disturbed: She is such a type of personality that being anxious about others’affairs must be a stilmulus to becoming more sociable.

–        Getting eager or stubborn to obtain something: The more anxious they keep for striking rich; the more corrupt where they are living becomes.

10. Any Place/Anyplace

–        Whichever place meant to confirm as a whole: Those plots of monopoly were thought to come true at any place as they expected.

–        Whichever place meant to say just a part: Any place in the city he does think that his plan could come into reality.

11. Mad About Something/Mad For Something

– So enthusiastic or excessively interested in something: He’s so mad about sports that he has never ignored any match.

– So angry: They are mad about what someone asked about his personal life.

– So craving or longing: The madder they are for food; the more serious obesity becomes.

– So carried away in emotion: Most of teenagers were mad for such a rap song that it appears each of their gesture.

12. Made From Something/Made Of Something

– The material used to produce something is different from the finished product: Alcohol made from potato or beetroot could replace petrol in power use.

– The material used to produce something is of the same property of the finished product: Some houses are made of already-used bricks to disguise its ancient charm.

13. Of A Kind/Of The Kind

– Not fully meeting a quality or a name: Most of them regard these statesmen as the puppets on water of a kind.

– Not having the different property: This patient was treated as a psychopath of a kind.

– Not being classified as the extraordinary: The latest car looks like a Toyota of the kind.

14. Of Age/Of An Age/Of One’s Age

– Reaching a certain age.: This work can’t be done by those who are at least 20 years of age.

– Reaching a legally old man: Due to not yet coming of age he can’t own this house.

– Being respectully mentioned in obituary notices or memorials for a deceased person: His name went down into the history at his death in the 65th year of his age.

15. Of No Account/On No Account

– Having no significance or importance: They will have been forcified to stop such propaganda of no account on revamping the Cabinet before next quarter.

– Having been determined to overcome any trouble: On no account we will bring this conspiracy to broad daylight in years to come.

16. Off Hand/Out Of Hand

– Without preliminary preparation or consideration: Nobody could answer his off-hand question about the sexual abuse by such clergymen

– Without delay or stop: The news off hand is out of hand new.

17. Off One’s Beam/Off The Beam

– Crazy: Somebody looking off their beam could say that these men were poor

– Wrong: Many people know about the pandemic off the beam.

18. Habitable/Inhabitable/Unhabitable

– Giving evidence of supporting life: Mars has been still thought to be a habitable planet

– Giving condition of supporting life: This inhabitable island was formed in the old days.

– Giving no sign of supporting life: No science fiction today dare make such a question whether environmental pollution could lead to the unhabitable Earth.

19. Half The Time/Half Time

– Much shorter than usual: He could complete the task half the time.

– A considerable time: He spent half the time of his life on thinking that democracy is true to bring equality to mankind.

– Habitually: Their work is half the time disguising themselves as those who only live up to their faith not politics.

– The time between two halves of a game: Until the end of the half time it was known that this match had been duped on a hidden bet.

20. Half-Way/Middle-Of-The-Road

– Situated between two points or stages; states or conditions: Mass media has been brainwashed to make people have a half-way mind on everything on Earth today.

– Avoinding any extremities to become moderate or conventional: The omnipotient weapon from the global religious crisis is the middle-of-the-road concept of defining not only what religion is but also how true it has been through archaeological facts.