Lianna
@lianna_armenian • 9,086 subscribers
✝️Focused on #Christianity around the world and #Armenia🇦🇲 - First Christian country ✝️ | History | My own original content | 🇦🇲🤝🇬🇷🇫🇷🇨🇾 | No DMs
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🇦🇲✝️ Never forget the #Armenian Genocide. An elderly #Christian #Armenian grandfather bravely shared the heartbreaking story of how the people of Musa Dagh refused to die. When Armenian Christians across the Ottoman Empire were already being marched to their deaths in 1915, the people of just six Armenian villages beneath Musa Dagh received the same deportation orders and immediately understood what they meant. Those orders were not relocation. They were a death sentence written in the blood of their people. Deportation meant the long march into the Syrian desert, the slow starvation, the mass graves, the deliberate extinguishing of an entire Christian nation. Across the empire the same machinery was already at work. The Armenians of Kabusie, Yoghunoluk, Bitias, Vakef, Khederbeg and Haji-Habibli had already watched that fate devour their brothers and sisters. They would not walk quietly into the slaughter. So they gathered their children, their elderly, their last sacks of grain, their livestock, and the few hundred rifles they possessed, and they climbed the mountain of Moses. Four thousand human beings — mothers carrying infants, fathers with broken tools turned into weapons, young boys who had never held a gun — ascended into the heights knowing full well what waited below. Against them the Islamic-Ottoman state hurled thousands of regular troops and irregular killers. The mountain was surrounded. Assault after assault crashed against their thin lines. For fifty-three desperate days they held the ridges, driving back the waves of attackers while their food ran out and their ammunition dwindled to almost nothing. Every dawn brought the same question: Would this be the day the final bullet was fired and the final child was taken? They resisted. They fought. They refused to die on their knees. They lived in exposed camps of wood and cloth. About 600 men could fight, most with hunting guns and a handful of real rifles. They took weapons from the dead when they could. When ammunition and food failed, they lit bonfires on the seaward cliffs and raised two banners: a white cloth marked with a red cross, and another that read CHRISTIANS IN DISTRESS: RESCUE. Do you understand what that flag means? It is a people on the edge of extinction still calling themselves Christians in the face of men who had already decided they should not exist. On 6 September Vice-Admiral Louis Dartige du Fournet received the telegram and turned toward the mountain. The next day his flagship Jeanne d’Arc closed the shore. Reverend Tigran Andreasyan came on deck and told him the ships were needed now — for every soul still alive. Du Fournet refused to wait. In his log he wrote that time was short, and whatever Command would say, they all had to be taken off. On 10 September French ships fired on Ottoman positions to cover the rescue. On 12 September Guichen, Amiral Charner, Desaix, Foudre, and D’Estrées came in and launched their boats. Women, children, and the elderly went first, then the fighters. The operation lasted into 13 September. They were taken to Port Said. 4,058 people were saved, including 1,563 children. When word from Command finally came months later - "Where is Mount Moses?"- the survivors were already safe. If the admiral had waited for a clerk to find the mountain on a map, no one would have come down alive. They would not convert. They would not surrender. A French admiral refused to look away. The ships came.
Lianna135,561 次观看 • 1 个月前
🇬🇷☦️ Never forget the #Greek Genocide. Tears still fall when we see this rare archival footage of the forced exile of the #Christian #Greeks from their own ancestral lands. This is a historical/educational tweet about the Greek Genocide. The Ottoman Empire, under the Young Turk government (Committee of Union and Progress) and later Kemalist forces, carried out a systematic campaign of persecution, mass murder, and expulsion against the native Greek population of Asia Minor, Pontus, and Eastern Thrace. This formed part of a broader effort to eliminate Christian minorities and create an ethnically and religiously homogeneous Turkish state. Over 350,000 Pontian Greeks are estimated to have been killed, with total Greek deaths across regions ranging from several hundred thousand to as many as 1 million, according to various scholarly estimates. Persecutions began intensifying in 1914 with boycotts, arbitrary arrests, property seizures, and forced conscription of men into lethal labor battalions (Amele Taburları), where most perished from exhaustion, starvation, disease, and execution. The physical destruction was accompanied by a systematic economic campaign. Under the pretext of laws dealing with "abandoned goods" (Emval-i Metruke), the state seized the homes, lands, businesses, and bank accounts of the deported and murdered Greeks. This mass expropriation stripped the Christian communities of centuries of wealth to build a new national economy. Beyond physical and economic destruction, this campaign constituted a profound cultural genocide. The perpetrators aimed to erase all historical traces of the Greek presence. Ancient towns were systematically renamed, schools were shut down, and thousands of centuries-old monuments, churches, and monasteries were either destroyed, desecrated, or converted. Women, children, and the elderly endured death marches designed to kill without pulling a trigger. Deportees were forced to walk for weeks across brutal terrain without food, water, or shelter. Anyone who collapsed from hunger or exposure was either shot on the spot or left to die by the roadsides. Thousands died from disease and attacks by irregular forces. Entire villages were burned. These atrocities occurred alongside the Armenian Genocide and massacres of Assyrians, as part of the same late Ottoman campaign against Christian populations. Contemporary evidence is extensive: reports from American consuls and ambassadors, Western missionaries, European diplomats, and relief organizations documented the events in real time. The violence deliberately targeted Christian clergy. A prominent example is Metropolitan Chrysostomos of Smyrna, who refused to abandon his flock in 1922. He was arrested, tortured, and lynched by a mob - an act of martyrdom that symbolizes the tragedy. In 2007, the International Association of Genocide Scholars (IAGS) officially recognized the Greek Genocide, affirming that the Ottoman campaign against Pontian and Anatolian Greeks constituted genocide, alongside those against Armenians and Assyrians. This was the violent erasure of a civilization with roots stretching back three millennia. Eternal memory to the blessed martyrs. May the blessed Christian martyrs rest in peace.
Lianna95,868 次观看 • 3 个月前
✝️ 🇦🇲 The largest #Christian cathedral in #Iran🇮🇷 is a painted Bible. The #Armenian Vank Cathedral in Isfahan was built over 350 years ago. Every square centimeter was hand-painted by three ✝️🇦🇲 monks over decades. This true gem was built under the patronage of Archbishop David. Vank Cathedral ("Amnaperkich," meaning "Savior of All") was begun in 1655 and completed in 1664 AD. It's one of 13 surviving 17th-century churches in Isfahan's Julfa district. Over the following centuries, the complex expanded to include a bell-tower (1702), a printing press founded by Bishop Khachatoor, a library (1884), and a museum (1905). The interior paintings, inspired by both the Old and New Testaments, were executed by Armenian masters and three monks: Havans, Stepanus, and Minas. Every surface-the walls, arches, the collar and interior of the dome, and all corners of the Cathedral-is decorated with oil paintings. All around the walls of the Cathedral, there are many inscriptions which are written in the Armenian language that invite the readers to pray for the constructors of the Cathedral and their descendants. Most of the murals depict biblical themes, illustrating the story from the birth to the ascension of Jesus Christ.
Lianna169,923 次观看 • 9 个月前
May Lord protect everyone and keep all innocent lives safe 🙏. ✝️68 AD. Hidden in the mountains of #Iran 🇮🇷. One of the oldest surviving 🇦🇲✝️ #Christian churches on Earth-built on the martyrdom site of an apostle. The #Armenian Monastery of Saint Thaddeus was founded in 68 AD according to sacred tradition on the very spot where Saint Thaddeus, one of the twelve apostles, was martyred and buried This makes it an apostolic-era sanctuary where Armenians have prayed since the 1st century, long before Armenia became the first Christian nation in 301 AD. Its walls have witnessed empires rise and fall. They all came and went, but the Armenian prayer never stopped. The current structure is a mosaic of centuries. The oldest surviving parts, around the altar apse, date from the 7th century, with some traditions linking earlier origins to the 4th century or the apostolic era. After an earthquake destroyed much of it in 1319, the monastery was extensively rebuilt in the 1320s under Bishop Zachariah. Further repairs occurred over the centuries, including in the 17th century. In the early 19th century, under the patronage of Father Superior Simeon, a large western extension (a narthex-like structure) was added, deliberately echoing the design of Etchmiadzin Cathedral, the mother church of the Armenian Apostolic Church. In 2008, UNESCO inscribed the Monastery of Saint Thaddeus (together with the Monastery of Saint Stepanos and the Chapel of Dzordzor, all in Iran's northwestern provinces) on its World Heritage List as the "Armenian Monastic Ensembles of Iran." This recognition highlights their outstanding universal value in Armenian architectural and decorative traditions, cultural diffusion, and pilgrimage heritage. Every year, thousands of pilgrims-Armenians and others-still journey to this remote mountain valley to kneel where an apostle is believed to have fallen. The annual three-day pilgrimage in July venerates Saint Thaddeus and Saint Sandukht (a royal convert martyred with him).
Lianna103,480 次观看 • 7 个月前
☦️🇨🇾 Never forget the illegal invasion of #Cyprus. On July 20, 1974, over 162,000 #Greek #Cypriot #Christians were brutally driven from their ancestral homes in a campaign of ethnic cleansing. This is a historical/educational tweet. On July 20, 1974, Turkey launched a full-scale military invasion of the Republic of Cyprus — a sovereign, independent state and UN member. Code-named “Operation Attila,” it was carried out in two phases. Thousands of Greek Cypriots were killed or executed during the military advance. According to the official records of the bi-communal Committee on Missing Persons (CMP), 1,510 Greek Cypriots are among those listed as missing. Between 162,000 and 200,000 Greek Cypriots, roughly one-third of the population, were forcibly expelled from their homes in the north, becoming refugees in their own country overnight. This campaign of forced displacement stripped families of their ancestral lands, homes, and properties. 36.2% of the island was occupied. In the occupied areas, historic Byzantine churches, chapels, and monasteries — some over a thousand years old — were systematically desecrated. Many were converted into mosques, military depots, or stables, while others were looted or left to decay. Hundreds of priceless icons were stolen or smashed, frescoes were defaced, and a rich cultural heritage was deliberately targeted. The Armenian Quarter (Armenomahallas) in Nicosia’s walled city, along with the historic Notre Dame de Tyre church, was completely sealed off under Turkish military control. In the northern mountains, the famous 11th-century Sourp Magar (Saint Macarius) Armenian monastery was seized by Turkish troops, looted, and left to decay. The international community documented these violations in real-time. UN Security Council resolutions condemned the invasion, demanded the immediate withdrawal of foreign troops, and called for the safe return of all displaced persons. These resolutions remain unimplemented more than 50 years later. Furthermore, the demographic character of the north was altered by transferring tens of thousands of settlers from mainland Anatolia, a move condemned under the Fourth Geneva Convention. The ghost town of Varosha (Famagusta), once a thriving Greek Cypriot resort, remains a heavily restricted, deteriorating ruin and a painful symbol of this tragedy. In 1983, the occupied northern area was unilaterally declared the “Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus.” This entity is recognized only by Turkey and is declared legally invalid by UN Security Council Resolutions 541 and 550. Cyprus has maintained a continuous Greek presence for over 3,000 years. Today, the division continues. Greek Cypriot families are still barred from permanently returning to their ancestral villages, and Nicosia remains the last divided capital in Europe. Eternal memory to the blessed martyrs and the missing of Cyprus. May the fallen heroes and innocent victims of 1974 rest in peace.
Lianna32,558 次观看 • 2 个月前
🇬🇷✝️🇦🇲 Rare footage showing the Great Fire of Smyrna in 1922. Few people have ever heard about this incredible act of courage. In September 1922, while smoke rose from the burning city of Smyrna and #Greek and #Armenian #Christians were brutally killed on the quay, the brave crew of the Japanese cargo ship Tokei Maru chose humanity and saved hundreds of lives. On 9 September 1922, Turkish forces entered Smyrna. Massacre, rape, and deportation of Greek and Armenian civilians followed. Four days later, a fire broke out in the Armenian quarter and destroyed much of Smyrna. The scenes on the waterfront were horrible. There was the most awful scream one could ever imagine. Many did undoubtedly jump into the sea, from sheer panic. Mothers with their babies, the fire going on over their heads, and many of the bundles of clothes also on fire, and the people all screaming. About twenty Allied warships and cargo vessels sat at anchor. Among them was the Japanese freighter Tokei Maru. Anna Harlowe Birge, wife of Professor Birge of the International College at Smyrna, witnessed the helpless refugees crowding each other off the wharves as Smyrna began to burn. Men and women could be seen swimming in the harbor in the hope of rescue; many drowned. She wrote: "In the harbor, at that time, was a Japanese freighter, which had just arrived loaded to the decks with a very valuable cargo of silks, laces, and china representing many thousands of dollars. The Japanese captain, when he realized the situation, did not hesitate. The whole cargo went overboard into the dirty waters of the harbor, and the freighter was loaded with several hundred refugees, who were taken to Piraeus and landed in safety on Greek shores." During the same Smyrna catastrophe, she helped about forty Armenian students. She wrote her name after theirs and presented them as her sons. A Turkish military official, struck by the boldness of the act, allowed her and the boys to board a destroyer in the harbor. The Japanese ship was not left in peace. According to the Greek newspaper Empros, after the captain sent out the ship’s small boats, Kemalist soldiers surrounded them and threatened to sink them unless the refugees were given up. The captain refused. He is reported to have said that if they touched the people under his protection, he would treat it as an insult to the Japanese flag and a threat to Japan. The soldiers then consulted a superior and let the boats go. U.S. Consul George Horton, writing on 18 September 1922, confirmed the rescue itself: a Japanese ship took refugees; cargo was said to have been thrown overboard; and passengers praised the kindness of the Japanese officers and men. Contemporary Greek reports put one sailing about 825 people. Japanese records confirm that Tokei Maru was in the eastern Mediterranean in September 1922. The humanitarian actions of the Japanese ship were also recorded at the time by many Armenian and Greek survivors of the Smyrna catastrophe. Never forget Smyrna. For 3,000 years, Smyrna had been a vibrant Greek Christian jewel of Asia Minor. That September, families were trapped between the burning city and the sea. Behind them, their ancient quarters were turning to ash. Ahead of them was only water.
Lianna16,236 次观看 • 1 个月前
🇦🇲✝️🇬🇷 Rare archival footage of children during the #Smyrna Holocaust and the death marches of the #Armenian Genocide. Never forget the #Armenian and #Greek Genocides – the systematic extermination of #Christians. May God illuminate the blessed souls of the martyrs.🕯️ #History #Armenia #Ελλάδα
Lianna60,367 次观看 • 6 个月前
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✝️ 🇦🇲 Heartbreaking words of an #Armenian #Christian grandmother: "I often can't sleep at night. I remember my childhood. I don't sleep..." Every survivor of the Armenian Genocide witnessed unimaginable horrors: priests burned alive in their churches, families torn apart on brutal death marches to Deir ez-Zor, entire villages erased, churches destroyed. Over 2 million blessed Christian martyrs perished: 1.5 million Armenians, 350,000 Pontic Greeks, and over 250,000 Assyrians (Seyfo). It began on April 24, 1915, when hundreds of Armenian intellectuals, clergy, and community leaders were arrested in Constantinople and executed. Communities were left leaderless and defenseless. What followed were systematic forced deportations. Armenian men were separated from their families and murdered on the spot. Women, children, and the elderly were marched southward into the Syrian desert under horrific conditions. These death marches involved starvation, dehydration, and relentless attacks by gendarmes and irregular militias. Countless died from exhaustion and violence long before reaching the camps. Entire villages were depopulated. Churches and cultural sites were razed. Armenian (and other Christian) property was seized and redistributed. Families were shattered. Children were orphaned. 1.5 million Armenian Christians lost their lives. In Deir ez-Zor and elsewhere, many died from starvation, typhus, or were buried in mass graves. The world witnessed. Morgenthau sent urgent cables to Washington. Henry Morgenthau Sr. described it as a "campaign of race extermination." Deniers obscure the truth, but such voices continue to be heard. German photographer Armin Wegner documented mass graves and starving survivors. Missionaries and Near East Relief workers recorded priests burned alive and other atrocities in diaries and reports. Thousands of pages of eyewitness testimony exist from neutral consuls, missionaries, and survivors. Deniers ask: "Where are the graves?" The perpetrators ensured few remained visible. Bodies were left along roadsides, thrown into the Euphrates, dumped in mass trenches, burned, or covered with lime to hasten decomposition. The desert swallowed the rest. Cemeteries, churches, and monasteries were destroyed, erased, or built over. But the truth cannot be buried. Pre-war Armenians numbered around 1.5-2 million in the Ottoman Empire. The campaign decimated them. This was one of the greatest crimes against humanity: The Armenian Genocide - recognized as the first modern genocide by scholars and many nations. Deniers still prosecute their own citizens under laws for calling it genocide. Key Ottoman documents from 1915 to 1923 remain sealed, reclassified, or missing - many archives were removed or destroyed as the CUP leaders fled in 1918. Scholars who accessed them found clear proof - yet access has often been restricted while Armenia has opened its archives fully and calls for independent, international historians to examine all sides' records without preconditions. Do not forget individuals like Mustafa Bey Azizoglu, district governor of Malatya (a key deportation transit point). Though unable to stop the deportations entirely, he hid several Armenians in his home - at the cost of his life. He was murdered by his own son. One of the survivors of the Armenian genocide refused to let the regime's leaders who ordered the massacres walk free. Soghomon Tehlirian, who lost his entire family - including his mother - in the Armenian Genocide, assassinated the chief architect of the massacres in broad daylight on a Berlin street on March 15, 1921. At his trial, he declared: "I have killed a man, but I am not a murderer." Witnesses exposed the Genocide's horrors; the German jury acquitted him. His act became a symbol of justice. Eternal memory to the blessed martyrs.
Lianna50,609 次观看 • 7 个月前
✝️🇦🇲 May the Lord bless #Armenia - the first #Christian country on earth-guardian of ancient, sacred, unbreakable #history. Over 1,700 years ago, Armenia built the first cathedral on earth: Etchmiadzin Cathedral. Imagine this: In a divine vision, St. Gregory the Illuminator saw Christ Himself descend from heaven and strike the ground with a golden hammer -marking the exact spot where the cathedral would rise. That's how Etchmiadzin Cathedral was built. The cathedral has been rebuilt and enriched over centuries. Its interior shines with 18th-century frescoes-floral motifs, birds, arabesques, Old Testament scenes, and saints -painted by masters like Naghash Hovnatan. The exterior features intricate stone carvings, blind arcades, geometric patterns, and early 5th-6th century reliefs of the Apostle St. Paul and St. Thecla. Today, Etchmiadzin Cathedral remains the spiritual headquarters of the Armenian Apostolic Church - the seat of the Catholicos of All Armenians, Supreme Patriarch and leader of Armenians worldwide. Its museum preserves relics beyond measure: the Holy Lance (the spear that pierced Christ), relics of the Apostles and John the Baptist, and a fragment believed to be from Noah's Ark. In 2000, Etchmiadzin Cathedral - together with the churches of St. Hripsime and St. Gayane - was inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Lianna31,644 次观看 • 7 个月前
✝️🇦🇲 The #Armenian Quarter of #Jerusalem is the living, beating heart of one of the world's oldest continuous #Christian communities - a presence in the Holy Land that spans over 1,700 years. This sacred sanctuary breathes history, where the faith and culture of millennia are woven into daily life. While Armenia made history in 301 AD as the first country to adopt Christianity, Armenians had been in Jerusalem for centuries. The first recorded visit dates to 96 BCE, and in 70 CE, Romans brought Armenian merchants and administrators to the city. A large number of Armenian monks are recorded to have settled in Jerusalem as early as the 4th century, following the uncovering of Christian holy places in the city. The first written records confirming this community are from the 5th century. A major strengthening occurred in the 12th century, when approximately one thousand Armenians-presumably from the allied Armenian Kingdom of Cilicia-moved to Jerusalem. In Crusader-era Jerusalem, Armenian women were pivotal pillars who shaped the kingdom's history through strategic marriages and political leadership. Notably, Queen Melisende, daughter of the Armenian Princess Morphia, ruled in her own right for over two decades. A major patron of the arts and the Armenian Church, she directly fortified the Armenian Quarter, ensuring its enduring presence. The heart of this self-contained enclave is the St. James Cathedral and Monastery, a 12th-century complex that serves as its spiritual center. Nearby, the Gulbenkian Library safeguards one of the world’s most extensive collections of Armenian manuscripts. The Armenian Quarter is also the birthplace of the world-famous Armenian ceramics of Jerusalem, a vibrant art form that flourished in the 19th century. Beyond its walls lies a silent testament to ancient roots: the Armenian Bird Mosaic (5th-6th century), just outside Damascus Gate, bearing the inscription: “For the memory and redemption of all the Armenians whose names God knows.” At the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, the Armenian Apostolic Church is one of the three primary custodians under the "Status Quo." They hold exclusive control over the Chapel of St. Helena and the "Chapel of the Division of the Raiment," maintain the second-most prominent altar in the Rotunda, and hold the right to perform the annual ceremonial washing of the Edicule on Holy Saturday. The Armenian Patriarchate of Jerusalem holds one of the world's largest and most significant collections of Armenian manuscripts-a treasury of over 4,000 volumes. These treasures, spanning from the 9th to the 19th centuries, include illuminated Gospels, biblical, and historical texts. The English writer Philip Marsden wrote that the survival of the Armenians in Jerusalem-"most intense of all cities"-demonstrates a profound cultural and spiritual fortitude.
Lianna35,241 次观看 • 8 个月前
✝️ May the Lord protect all sacred heritage in #Iran 🇮🇷. There's a #Christian monastery in #Iran. Most people don't know it exists. 🇦🇲 The #Armenian Monastery of Saint Stepanos has stood for over 1,000 years. Tradition says Saint Bartholomew founded a Church here in 62 AD. A sanctuary that has witnessed millennia-still standing, still sacred. Armenian prayers have never stopped. St. Stepanos Monastery is widely regarded as the second most important Armenian monastery in Iran. The site was inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List in 2008. The real magic of this place is its layered history. Armenian tradition holds that Saint Bartholomew the Apostle founded a church at the site around AD 62, during the Parthian era. Some accounts suggest early Christian activity in the broader region as early as the 1st century. Armenian hands built these walls. The first monastery structure dates to the 7th century (with the earliest documented reference around 649 AD), and it was expanded in the 10th century. The current main buildings were largely rebuilt in the Safavid era after damage from wars and earthquakes. The site suffered damage during the wars between the Seljuks and Byzantines in the 11th and 12th centuries. In the 14th century, after destruction from wars and earthquakes (notably around 1319), it was restored in the 1320s under Bishop Zachariah. By the 14th and 15th centuries, the monastery reached the height of its cultural and intellectual influence, serving as a center for producing illuminated manuscripts, paintings, and works in religion, history, and philosophy, many of which survive in collections like the Matenadaran in Yerevan, Armenia. The early Safavid dynasty (16th century) initially protected Armenian communities, but the region became a battleground in Ottoman-Safavid conflicts. The monastery gradually declined. In 1604–1605, Shah Abbas the Great forcibly relocated many Armenians (including from nearby areas), leading to periods of abandonment. The Safavids later reoccupied the region, and the monastery was restored in the latter part of the 17th century. Further restorations occurred in the Qajar era, with Crown Prince Abbas Mirza personally supporting repairs and maintenance in the early 19th century (around 1819–1825). The monastery complex includes the main Church, as well as the Darreh Sham and Chupan chapels. It is known for its intricate carvings, reddish stone, and impressive dome. UNESCO recognizes the Armenian Monastic Ensembles (including St. Stepanos Monastery) for bearing "continuous testimony, since the origins of Christianity and certainly since the 7th century, to Armenian culture in its relations and contact with the Persian and later the Iranian civilisations." The monastery is considered a masterpiece of Armenian architecture, featuring a unique combination of Byzantine, Armenian, and Persian elements. Its ancient stones still echo centuries of prayers.
Lianna28,703 次观看 • 7 个月前
