The churches of Western Armenia are in poor condition.

This is what Dean of the Faculty of History at Yerevan State University Edik Minasyan told journalists today as he touched upon the pilgrimage that the representatives of the Faculty made to Western Armenia.

“This was our regular visit to Western Armenia. During the visit, we granted diplomas to the graduates of the Faculty of History at the Holy Cross Church of Akhtamar.

We really make a pilgrimage with the purpose of visiting ancient historic churches and monuments. By granting diplomas to the graduates in the Historic Homeland, we want to show that the western sector of the Homeland is not liberated and needs to be liberated through the graduates and their generations,” Minasyan noted, reported Panorama.am.

According to Minasyan, the visit is not only patriotic, historic and cognitive, but is also aimed at reinforcing the idea of return of territories among young Armenians.

“The churches and monuments were mainly in poor condition. There were places that had turned into pastures and bird markets. Only the church in Ani (included in the UNESCO List) was different from the rest. The St. Grigor Church had been restored to a certain extent, but the Turks had mixed their style with the Armenian style. The St. Akhtamar Church had turned into a museum, even though we had the opportunity to light candles. The Turks had destroyed our historic monuments with the purpose of finding gold,” the Dean of the Faculty of History at Yerevan State University said.

Graduate Gegham Asatryan, who participated in the visit, attached importance to the visit and said it was a highly anticipated visit for the graduates. “We had many impressions. The first thing that you see is every part of the national struggle for liberation. We would feel longing as we sang every step of the way. At the same time, we saw the poor condition of the monuments and the distortion of history. We noticed that the damages caused to our monuments had been caused intentionally for the most part,” he said.