Western Azerbaijan Community forms group to explore Albanian Christian heritage

The Western Azerbaijan Community has established a working group to study Albanian Christian heritage located in present-day Armenia, including the historical regions of Zangezur and Daralayaz and the Lake Goycha basin.

According to Caliber.Az, the group will study the history of churches, temples and monasteries, their architectural and epigraphic features, and questions concerning their affiliation through the examination of archival documents and other primary sources.

“There is a widespread view in Azerbaijani academic circles that documents of the Albanian Catholicosate from the 16th to 19th centuries were completely destroyed. Undoubtedly, losses did occur.

However, numerous documents concerning both Albanian Catholicoses and the religious and social history of that period have survived in archives and manuscript collections in a number of countries, and some of them have already been published. These materials are kept in various collections. The working group’s main mission is to systematically search for, identify and bring them together in a unified scientific database. At present, the Western Azerbaijan  Community already has several hundred documents on this subject.

The visit of foreign diplomats to the Ganjasar monastery complex in September this year showed that cultural heritage has entered the diplomatic agenda. The Western Azerbaijan Community considers the multilayered religious and cultural heritage in present-day Armenia, including medieval monuments of Caucasian Albania, part of its heritage as successors to the deported Azerbaijanis. This position can be substantiated in the international academic community only through source-based facts and research whose results can be independently verified. The research will also contribute to documenting the historical and cultural foundations for the safe and dignified return of the deported population,” the community said.

By Jeyhun Aghazada