TIMES SQUARE HOSTS GENOCIDE COMMEMORATION
On Sunday, April 27, His Eminence Archbishop Anoushavan, Prelate, gave the invocation at the Times Square commemoration of the Armenian Genocide, sponsored by the Knights and Daughters of Vartan with the participation of all Armenian organizations. You may read below the text of the invocation:
We thank you, Almighty Lord, for making us worthy to commemorate the 110th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide at Times Square, this crossroads of the world, to invoke and to render respectful tribute to our one and a half million martyrs who became the victims of racial discrimination, ethnic cleansing, violations, deportations, and massacres from their five-thousand-year-old homeland. The Ottoman Turks did not pay attention to the requests of American Ambassador Henry Morgenthau Sr. to stop the massacres, and cynically claimed to be the heirs to Armenian policyholders in American insurance companies.
During this season of celebrating the victorious Resurrection of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, we are called as Christians to be witnesses to the Truth. The truth is that today, the atrocities which commenced in the 1890s have continued through 1915 and 1922 on to the present. Man’s inhumanity against mankind has in fact become more ferocious, more violent, and more hideous than could ever be imagined.
The end of the twentieth century and the beginning of the twenty-first have been marked by a string of genocidal acts against Armenians, from the Sumgait, Kirovabad, Baku, and Maragha pogroms and the uprooting of 300,000 Armenians from Azerbaijan. These barbaric acts have been followed by the cultural genocide in Nakhichevan, and most recently, the forced deportation of 120,000 Armenians from Artsakh after a nine-month-long, inhumane blockade. Adding insult to injury, Azerbaijan, which was artificially created barely a century ago, shamelessly declares that five-thousand-year-old Armenia is “Western Azerbaijan.”
Turkey and Azerbaijan are the progeny of impunity. The Republic of Turkey emerged from the impunity of the Armenian Genocide, while Azerbaijan came forth from the massacre of the Baku Armenians in 1918. In this world turned upside down, everything which is considered wrong for right-minded people is praised in the darkest quarters of Ankara and Baku, whether it is murder, destruction, or pillage.
Our expectation is that the young Turks of 2025 become aware of the facts surrounding the Young Turks who committed the genocide in 1915 and the years that followed. We invite the authorities and citizens of Turkey to assume the responsibility of their forefathers, which will pave the road toward justice and peace.
The commemoration of the Armenian Genocide is not a goal in and of itself. It contributes to addressing today’s injustices and helps to prevent future genocides. “The Darfur Genocide Never Ended,” wrote a survivor of that genocide in the New York Times this week. Our cause is the cause of all minorities in the world who are suffering the scars of injustice, discrimination, and dictatorship while the world remains silent.
With this understanding and spirit, we thank you, Almighty Lord, for enabling us to cross the Valley of Death, Deir-ez-Zor, and to be welcomed by the Statue of Liberty in Ellis Island, which embraced us saying:
“Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.”
We are thankful for all statesmen and stateswomen who have been at the forefront of justice, and who are committed to ensuring that righteousness prevails.
Let the perpetrators of the Armenian Genocide be aware that we will walk from California to New York to Yerevan and Australia, despite all denials, distortions, and oppressions, for our faith and hope are higher than the mountains and deeper than the oceans, and our endurance is stronger than steel.
May we all carry the yoke of truth, justice, and peace consciously and willingly until the victorious end.