As Israel’s struggle on Gaza rages and Israeli assaults on folks within the occupied West Financial institution proceed, Armenian residents of the Previous Metropolis of Jerusalem are preventing a unique battle – quieter, they are saying, however no much less existential.
One of many oldest communities in Jerusalem, the Armenians have lived within the Previous Metropolis for greater than 1,500 years, centred across the Armenian convent.
Now, the small Christian group has begun to fracture underneath strain from forces they are saying threaten them and the multifaith character of the Previous Metropolis – from Jewish settlers who jeer at clergymen on their solution to prayer to a land deal threatening to show 1 / 4 of their land right into a luxurious lodge.
Chasms have emerged between the Armenian Patriarchate and the primarily secular group, whose members fear the church shouldn’t be geared up to guard their dwindling inhabitants and embattled convent.
Within the Armenian Quarter is Save the Arq’s headquarters, a construction with strengthened plywood partitions hung with historical maps inhabited by Armenians who’re there to protest what they see as an unlawful land seize by an actual property developer.
The land underneath menace is the place the group holds occasions and likewise consists of elements of the patriarchate itself.
After years of the patriarchate refusing to promote any of its land, Armenian priest Baret Yeretsian secretly “leased” the lot in 2021 for as much as 98 years to Xana Capital, an organization registered simply earlier than the settlement was signed.
Xana turned greater than half the shares to a neighborhood businessman, George Warwar, who has been concerned in numerous legal offences.
Group members have been outraged.
The priest fled the nation and the patriarchate cancelled the deal in October, however Xana objected and the contract is now in mediation.
Xana has despatched armed males to the lot, the activists say, attacking folks, together with clergy, with pepper spray and batons.
The activists say Warwar has the backing of a outstanding settler organisation searching for to broaden the Jewish presence in Jerusalem’s Previous Metropolis.
The organisation, Ateret Cohanim, is behind a number of controversial land acquisitions within the Previous Metropolis, and its leaders have been photographed with Warwar and Xana Capital proprietor Danny Rothman, also referred to as Danny Rubinstein, in December 2023. Ateret Cohanim denied any connection to the land deal.
Activists filed go well with towards the patriarchate in February, searching for to have the deal declared void and the land to belong to the group in perpetuity.
The patriarchate refused, saying it owns the land.
Armenians started arriving within the Previous Metropolis as early because the fourth century with a big wave arriving within the early twentieth century, fleeing the Ottoman Empire. They’ve the identical standing as Palestinians in Israeli-occupied East Jerusalem – residents however not residents, successfully stateless.
At present, the newcomers are primarily boys who arrive from Armenia to stay and examine within the convent though many drop out. Clergy say that’s partially as a result of assaults towards Christians have elevated, leaving the Armenians – whose convent is closest to the Jewish Quarter and is alongside a preferred path to the Western Wall – susceptible.
Father Aghan Gogchyan, the patriarchate’s chancellor, mentioned he’s often attacked by teams of Jewish nationalists.
The Rossing Middle, which tracks anti-Christian assaults within the Holy Land, documented about 20 assaults on Armenian folks and property and church properties in 2023, many involving ultranationalist Jewish settlers spitting at Armenian clergy or graffiti studying “Demise to Christians” scrawled on the quarter’s partitions.
