By Manal Abdel Fattah
More than 30 masked armed extremist settlers invaded the territory of the “Cow Garden” in the Armenian Quarter of Jerusalem, brutally attacking bishops, priests, deacons and other representatives of the Armenian community, with priests, students of the Armenian Theological Academy and local Armenians seriously injured.
The threat to the existence of the Armenian Patriarchate has now become a material reality, the Armenian Patriarchate said, adding that bishops, priests, deacons and local Armenians are immediately fighting for their lives and the Patriarchate calls on the authorities of world countries and international media to help save the Armenian neighborhood from violent destruction.
According to the statement of the Armenian Patriarchate, Armenians first arrived in Palestine in the fourth century AD and were the first to establish hospitality centers to receive pilgrims in the country.
It is noteworthy that the Armenian Patriarchate is one of the three main churches that supervises the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, after the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate and the Latin Patriarchate.
The Armenian Church belongs to the family of Eastern Orthodox churches, and its first patriarch was appointed in Jerusalem in 638 AD, while the Armenians obtained an official decree of recognition from the Rashidun Caliph Omar ibn al-Khattab, in which he enumerated the rights of the Armenian Church in the Holy Land in order to ensure its protection and safety. This decree was inscribed at the entrance to the Armenian Monastery inside Old town.
The area of the Armenian Quarter is about 300 dunams, and it includes, in addition to the houses, the headquarters and offices of the Patriarchate, the Theological Institute, a school, a museum, and a health clinic, in addition to the second largest Armenian library of manuscripts in the world, and the oldest printing press in Jerusalem, which was founded in 1833.
The number of Armenians before the 1967 war was about 25 thousand people in Palestine, but most of them emigrated after the occupation of East Jerusalem, and the number of people living in the neighborhood currently is about 3 thousand people.
The Armenians categorically reject the monastery to submit to Israeli sovereignty, and the Patriarchate fought the occupation authorities in the 1990s, refusing to impose taxes on the monastery and interfering in the affairs of the Patriarchate.
