On April 27, 2022, Azerbaijani pro-government news agencies circulated items titled “Easter celebrated in Hadrut,” also publishing new photographs from the Holy Resurrection Church in the city of Hadrut.
Examination of the photographs clearly shows that the cross has been removed from the church.
In addition, the Azerbaijanis, following the Azerbaijani president’s exhortation to erase inscriptions from Armenian churches, have erased the inscription at the church entrance stating that the church was renovated with the financial support of Mikhail Baghdasarov.
The carpets and liturgical items are also absent from the church grounds, and the icons have been removed from the walls. The walls of the church’s outer fence have been defiled with various Azerbaijani names.
All this is the result of a planned policy by Azerbaijan, as evidenced in particular by the statements of that country’s high-ranking officials.
Months ago, Azerbaijan’s Minister of Culture Anar Karimov announced that a “working group” was being created in Azerbaijan, whose purpose is the elimination of Armenian inscriptions and the Armenian trace from the confiscated monuments of Artsakh.
Earlier, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev, during a visit to the Holy Mother of God Church in the Hadrut region, had urged the erasure of Armenian inscriptions, not concealing the true essence of Azerbaijan’s adopted policy against Armenian cultural heritage: namely destruction, alteration and appropriation.
The Holy Resurrection Church was built in 1621 [Makар Barkhudaryants]. It was later renovated in 1819, at which time the church’s dome was also installed [“Historical-Architectural Monuments of Mountainous Karabakh,” Mkrtchyan Sh., 1987, Yerevan, p. 3].
The Holy Resurrection Church was last renovated in 1999 with the financial assistance of M. Baghdasarov. Before the war, Holy Resurrection was a functioning church and was not damaged during the war. The desecration of the church has been carried out consistently after the end of the war.
After the war, in the same manner, all Armenian cultural monuments in the confiscated territories of Artsakh are falling victim to cultural vandalism.
