Armenian Christians in Jerusalem’s Old City feel the walls closing in | Jerusalem News

As Israel’s war in Gaza escalates and Israel’s attacks on civilians in the West Bank continue, the Armenian residents of Jerusalem’s Old City are fighting a different kind of war – they say they are quiet, but they are no less.

One of the oldest communities in Jerusalem, Armenians have lived in the Old City for over 1,500 years, centered around the Armenian monastery.

Now, the small Christian community has begun to crack under pressure from forces they say threaten them and many of the Old City’s religions – from Jewish tribes who taunt clerics when they go to prayer to a world deal that threatens to change a quarter of their share. checked into a luxury hotel.

Disagreements have erupted between the Armenian Patriarchate and the secular public, whose members are concerned that the church is ill-equipped to protect its dwindling population and estranged monks.

On the Armenian side is the Save the Arq headquarters, a building with reinforced plywood walls hung with ancient maps that houses Armenians who are there to protest what they see as an illegal land grab by a real estate developer.

The threatened world is where the community holds events and includes parts of the patriarchy itself.

After years of the patriarch refusing to sell any of his property, Armenian priest Baret Yeretsian privately “leased” the lot in 2021 for up to 98 years to Xana Capital, a company registered shortly before the deal was signed.

Xana turned over half of the shares to a local businessman, George Warwar, who has been involved in various criminal cases.

Community members were furious.

The priest fled the country and the patriarch revoked the agreement in October, but Xana refused and the agreement is now being mediated.

Xana has sent armed men into the refrigerator, activists say, attacking people, including pastors, with pepper spray and sticks.

Activists say Warwar is backed by a prominent immigrant organization that wants to increase the Jewish presence in Jerusalem’s Old City.

The organization, Ateret Cohanim, was involved in the controversial land grab in the Old City, and its leaders were photographed with Warwar and Xana Capital owner Danny Rothman, aka Danny Rubinstein, in December 2023. Ateret Cohanim has denied any connection to the deal. of the world. .

Activists filed a petition in court in February, demanding that the agreement be declared null and void and the land be permanently owned by the community.

The grandfather refused and said it was the owner of the place.

Armenians first arrived in the Old City at the beginning of the fourth century in a large wave that arrived at the beginning of the 20th century, fleeing the Ottoman Empire. They have the same status as the Palestinians in East Jerusalem occupied by Israel – residents but not citizens, outside the country.

Today, the novices are mainly boys who came from Armenia to live and study at the monastery although many drop out. Clergy say that’s because attacks on Christians have increased, leaving Armenians – whose monastery is close to the Jewish Quarter and on the popular route to the Western Wall – vulnerable.

Father Aghan Gogchyan, chancellor of the Patriarchate, said he was often attacked by Jewish nationalist groups.

The Rossing Center, which tracks anti-Christian attacks in the Holy Land, documented 2023 attacks on Armenian people and property and church buildings, many involving ultranationalist Jewish immigrants spitting on Armenian clergy or scrawling “Death to Christians” . quarter walls.