Armenia’s survivors
In northeastern Turkey stand the ruins of what was once one of the world’s largest and most imposing cities. In the Middle Ages, Ani was the “City of 1,001 Churches,” the capital of Armenia’s mighty Bagratuni dynasty which held off both the Christian Byzantine Empire and the Arab Caliphate.
The Bagratid kingdom is long gone, like Ani itself, but Armenians survive. Although Armenia’s Christian past is little known in the West, it is an awe-inspiring tale of endurance in a profoundly hostile political and religious setting. So devastating have been some of these events that outsiders have repeatedly been tempted to write the obituary of Armenia, yet people, nation and church continue.
Armenia today is a small nation of some 3.3 million people in a territory barely a quarter the size of Pennsylvania. Officially, it is also a new country, independent only since 1991. Such curt facts conceal a deep antiquity.
