Armenia, a martyr nation / A historical sketch of the Armenian people from traditional times to the present tragic days

by Mugurdich Chojhauji Gabrielian

“Does not this blood cry to Heaven? And even though the kings of the earth be deaf to its cry, will not God hear?”

It should not be considered superfluous to state that even these facts were brought by such an able and honest man as Dr. Lepsius before the attention of the German people, the German government still courted the friendship of the Turkish government, and have succeeded in keeping the masses of the honest and good Christian people to believe that the Armenians were receiving from the hands of the Turks what they deserved. Strange as it may appear, yet nevertheless it is true, that the Germans were more willing to believe than the Englishmen—like her Majesty’s Government—that Armenians were not suffering all these atrocities on account of “their religious faith.” It is a disgrace to humanity, and especially to the German Kultur, that Germans who are so thorough in almost everything, should still be so superficial in this one particular, that they should not see the underlying fact. Dr. Lepsius quotes from a German daily paper which, in discussing the massacre at Sassoun, wrote:

“In the absence of other reasons for European intervention, the English and American press have been obliged to take up the Christian religion of the Armenians. Gladstone, indeed, on the occasion of the farce of the reception of the deputation from Sassoun, did not shrink from speaking of the ‘Armenians persecuted for their Christian faith.’ That is a palpable falsehood. What reason could the Porte have had for suddenly setting on foot a religious persecution, when in the course of hundreds of years it had taken no notice of the Armenian religion? As a matter of fact, a genuine persecution of Christians has never taken place in the Turkish Empire. Moreover, it would be the most imprudent thing the Porte could do to increase the manifold difficulties of its position by a religious persecution....”

The following is the answer which Dr. Lepsius gives, and he also sets an array of facts against biassed opinions:

“It is worth while to reproduce this pregnant summary of a widespread opinion ... for still the German press daily tells the same tale.... We confine ourselves to Armenia, and here we must indeed agree that it not only would be, but was ‘the most imprudent thing the Porte could do,’ to inaugurate a persecution of Christianity. For the Christians number one-third of the subjects of his majesty, the sultan, and—if we weigh instead of counting them—in intelligence, education, practical ability, and moral energy, they take up two-thirds of the entire population of the Turkish empire.... We cannot blame him [the journalist], then, if he is ignorant of the fact that the dismemberment of the Ottoman Empire and the ‘manifold difficulties of its position’ can be traced back in every case to the opposition between Islam and Christianity as well as to the circumstance that the religious law of Islam—which during the last decades has been more than ever the standard of Ottoman policy—does not admit equality of civil rights, and that any concession in this direction from the Porte can only be regarded ‘in principle,’ i.e., on paper....

“What are the Armenian massacres then? Without any question their origin was purely political, or to state it more exactly, they were an administrative measure. But facts go to prove that, considering the character of the Mohammedan people, whose very political passions are roused only by religious motives, this administrative measure must and did, take the form of a religious persecution on a gigantic scale. Are we then, simply because of the political origin of this religious persecution, to be forbidden to speak of the Armenians as ‘persecuted on account of their religious belief’? If so, there have never been any religious persecutions in the world; for all such without exception have been associated with political movements, and even the death of Christ was nothing but a political event, for political moves turned the balance at His condemnation.

“We have lists before us of 559 villages whose surviving inhabitants were converted to Islam with fire and sword, of 568 churches thoroughly pillaged, destroyed, and razed to the ground, of 282 Christian churches transformed into mosques, of 21 Protestant preachers and 170 Gregorian (Armenian) priests who were after enduring unspeakable tortures murdered on their refusal to accept Islam. We repeat, however, that these figures express only the extent of our information, and do not, by a long way, reach to the extent of the reality. Is this a religious persecution or is it not?... The most shameful desecration of the churches everywhere, the pollution of sacred vessels ... the spitting on Gospels and Bibles which were then torn into a thousand pieces—these were the mere accessories to the drama of vandalism.

“The method adopted for the work of compulsory conversion was everywhere the same.... In some towns and villages, even before the outbreak of the massacres, the choice was given of averting the threatened fate by embracing Islam. Mere threats of death were seldom sufficient; bayonets were pointed at the heart, swords at the throat. When this did not avail, tortures were employed. The priests and preachers, especially who refused to renounce their faith, had to endure absolutely inconceivable tortures before they received the coup de grace. The priest Der Hagop of Harpout, became insane, when, clad only in his shirt, he saw the swords of fifty soldiers pointed at him. What was to be done with him? As the Mullahs declared that a madman could not be received into Islam he was for the present thrown into prison for contumacy.

“In the monastery at Tadem the Venerable Archimandrite, Ohannes Papazian, had first his hands and afterwards his arms up to the elbows cut off, on his refusal to accept Islam. When, even then, he would not yield, he was beheaded on the pavement of the church. At Biredjik an old man who refused to renounce his faith was thrown down, live coals were heaped upon him, and, when he writhed in his agony, the fiends held a Bible before his eyes and mockingly bade him read to them some of the promises on which he had pinned his faith.

“At Diarbekir, the great stone church of the Syrian order of St. James, in which a number of refugees were sheltering, was surrounded by Kurds who fired on it, broke open the roof, threw down combustibles and at last succeeded in bursting open the door. Amid the joyous shouts of the mob the refugees were driven into the open in dense masses, and received with a hail of bullets. When the pastor, Jirjs Khatherschian, from Egypt, who happened to be visiting his relations, was recognized as an ecclesiastic he was thrown to the ground, and beaten till he became unconscious. One of the sacred books scattered around was pushed into his mouth, and he was mockingly called upon to preach a sermon. Burning brands fell on him, and when he was aroused from his unconscious state by the pain, and attempted to crawl away, he was seized and hurled into the blazing fire and burnt to death. Are we not reminded of the heroism of the Maccabees by a mother at Ourfa, who, when an attempt was made to force her sons to renounce their religion, came running up and besought them: ‘Let them kill you, but do not deny the Lord Jesus’—and the steadfast pair suffered death by the sword. The women and children followed the men to martyrdom. At Bitlis a hundred women, whose husbands had been slain, were conducted by soldiers to an open place. What was their answer when they were called upon to renounce Jesus and save their lives: ‘No, our husbands died for Him, and we will do the same.’ They were massacred.”