The Armenian Question

Armenia is located in the Caucasus region and straddles Russia, Turkey, Iran, and Georgia. An ancient nation, it has existed for nearly four thousand years, during which it has seen the rise and fall of countless empires, kingdoms, and dynasties. As the first country in the world to adopt Christianity as its state religion, Armenia has played a crucial role in the rise of Christianity. Today, increasingly aggressive neighbors, Azerbaijan and Turkey, seek to destroy the country and its historic Christian culture. In 2020, a simmering Nagorno-Karabakh conflict boiled over. Immediately, France, England, Canada, and many others in the international community condemned the hostile Muslim countries, and many others, such as America and Russia, called for peace in the region. This news, even at face value, shows just how critical Armenia’s situation is, but to fully understand the events in this region, one must look at these countries’ long history to see just how ancient this struggle is. Confirmed evidence of early Bronze Age civilization has been repeatedly documented in the Armenian lands, making the area one of the world’s oldest cultures. After the Flood, according to Scripture, Noah’s Ark landed on top of Mount Ararat, which is partially located in the country, making this land one of the first populated after The Flood. Due to the nation’s proximity to Israel, they have developed a long, eventful relationship and have played a key role in each other’s history. As it was possibly home to the Hittites and frequently in conflict with the Assyrians, this land is rich in shared Biblical history. After portions of Armenia were incorporated into the Roman Empire in the early first century AD, Christianity quickly spread through the region. As evidenced by how strong the Christian community developed in Armenia, nearly ten years before it was officially tolerated in the Roman Empire Tiridates III made Christianity the official religion of Armenia. To this day, Christianity (under the Armenian Apostolic Church) remains the primary religion in Armenia.

After a short one-hundred-year reign as an independent kingdom, Armenia was incorporated as a territory into the Second Persian Empire in the fourth century until the late sixth century when Byzantine Rome ousted the Persians. After remaining in the Byzantine Empire for three hundred years, Armenia split from the empire and became an independent kingdom. For the next seven hundred years, often due to its strategic significance, the vast majority of Armenian territory constantly passed through Ottoman and Persian rule, both Islamic empires, while a few isolated areas remained independent states. Even still, these small, weak feudal kingdoms could not match the sheer power of these empires. After 1828, Eastern Armenia became a part of Imperial Russia and Western Armenia became a part of the Muslim Ottoman Empire. Under the Ottomans, Armenians were separated from other Ottoman citizens and were frequently discriminated against, with many cases of outright persecution and execution.

During the early twentieth century, Armenia experienced one of the worst genocides of all time. This was not an isolated event as Armenians had experienced several genocides over a period from the late 1890s to the early 1910s. But from 1915 to 1923, nearly two million Armenians were murdered by the Ottoman Turks in two stages, the first in which they killed all the men, and the second in which they killed the women and children. The death toll was staggering. In the area the Armenians were deported from, modern-day Turkey, over half of the country’s provinces saw a nearly one hundred percent death toll of ethnic Armenians, with the other half experiencing seventy to eighty percent losses. With a pre-genocide population of around four million in the region, genocide wiped out nearly all of the Ottoman Armenians and almost half of the global population of the group. After World War One, the Ottoman Empire dissolved into several smaller countries, two of which were Turkey and Azerbaijan. For a short time, Armenia gained its independence from the Ottomans, but only two years later, in 1920, it once again became a territory of Russia; this time becoming a satellite state of the then-USSR.  For the next seventy years, Armenia remained under the influence of Soviet Russia until 1990 when Armenia formally declared independence from them. Shortly after, Armenia began setting up its government and signing into law its constitution in 1995. In the midst of all this, Armenia had to fight off its neighbors from the east and west. From the late 1980s, Armenia was (and to some extent, still is) fighting in the Nagorno-Karabakh war. Largely centered around a piece of land within Azerbaijan home to mostly Armenian Christians, Azerbaijan repeatedly tried to eradicate the Christian population, to achieve “ethnic cleansing.” During this time, Azerbaijan and Turkey both closed their borders to Armenia in the mid-1990s, effectively sealing off their eastern and western borders. In 2020, war between Armenia and Azerbaijan began again, and while it only lasted for a brief time, it had vast geopolitical implications. As a Christian country, Armenia found itself in a precarious situation. Being a predominately Christian enclave in Muslim Azerbaijan, the Azerbaijani government has repeatedly tried to remove the Christian population there, often by destroying Christian churches, imprisoning believers, and sometimes even killing many Armenian Christians. Shortly after the 2020 war broke out between Armenia and Azerbaijan, many of the Christians fled Azerbaijan for Armenia to avoid the persecution of the Azerbaijanis. In addition, with the war against Armenia, Azerbaijan’s army deliberately attacked Christian villages in Armenia, killing hundreds of innocent civilians. Furthermore, they humiliated and murdered many of their Armenian POWs. As a result, thousands of refugees left the region for Armenia where they would be more accepted into their neighbor’s society.

Although it may not yet rival the scale of some of the most horrific genocides of the twentieth century, nonetheless, the situation for the Armenian Christians could easily turn deadly. As the remnant of the Ottomans, Turkey inherited many of the desires of the former empire, including a full-scale push to rebuild its former glory. By resuming the genocide left unfinished by the Ottomans, Turkey seeks to finish the horrific deed the Ottoman Empire never finished. In getting rid of Armenia and its Christian population, Turkey will connect itself and Azerbaijan and slowly build back its dominance of the Middle East and the Muslim world which will in turn threaten other countries in the region, such as Israel. To make matters worse, Armenia maintains close ties with Russia, and Turkey remains a member of NATO, of which the U.S. is a key member. In many ways, the convoluted diplomatic situation in Armenia prevents us from taking major steps to protect Armenia from its hostile neighbors. Still, as Christians, we should be in constant prayer for the millions of Christians who are at risk, once again, of being wiped out.

Works Cited:

“Armenia – United States Department of State.” U.S. Department of State, U.S. Department of State, 22 Aug. 2023, www.state.gov/countries-areas/armenia/.

“Armenia Country Profile.” BBC News, BBC, 3 Oct. 2023, www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-17398605.

“Armenia.” Armenia | Country Page | World | Human Rights Watch, 23 Feb. 2022, www.hrw.org/europe/central-asia/armenia.

Council on Foreign Relations, Council on Foreign Relations, www.cfr.org/europe-and-eurasia/armenia. Accessed 29 Nov. 2023.

“History of Armenia.” Encyclopædia Britannica, Encyclopædia Britannica, inc., www.britannica.com/place/Armenia/History. Accessed 29 Nov. 2023.

“History.” Հայաստանի Հանրապետության Արտաքին Գործերի Նախարարություն, www.mfa.am/en/history/. Accessed 29 Nov. 2023.

“Nagorno-Karabakh Conflict | Global Conflict Tracker.” Council on Foreign Relations, Council on Foreign Relations, www.cfr.org/global-conflict-tracker/conflict/nagorno-karabakh-conflict. Accessed 29 Nov. 2023.

United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/the-armenian-genocide-1915-16-overview. Accessed 29 Nov. 2023.