Azerbaijan Accused of Erasing Armenian Christian Heritage After Churches Demolished in Artsakh

by Emmitt Barry, Worthy News Washington D.C. Bureau Chief

(Worthy News) – Armenian Christian leaders and global religious freedom advocates are condemning Azerbaijan after satellite imagery confirmed the demolition of two Armenian churches in Stepanakert, the capital of Nagorno-Karabakh, a region Armenians have long called Artsakh.

According to International Christian Concern, the destroyed churches include the Holy Mother of God Cathedral and the Church of St. Jacob. Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty reported that satellite images taken in late April confirmed both structures had been razed after remaining standing through years of war and regional upheaval.

The Holy Mother of God Cathedral was one of Stepanakert’s most visible Christian landmarks. Construction began in 2006, and the cathedral was consecrated in 2019. During the wars over Artsakh, its basement reportedly served as a shelter for civilians fleeing bombardment.

The demolition comes less than three years after Azerbaijan seized full control of Nagorno-Karabakh in September 2023, forcing the mass exodus of roughly 120,000 ethnic Armenians from the region. Since then, Armenian church leaders and cultural preservation groups have warned that Christian churches, monasteries, cemeteries, and ancient cross-stones remaining under Azerbaijani control face grave danger.

The Holy See of Etchmiadzin, the spiritual center of the Armenian Apostolic Church, accused Azerbaijan of deliberately targeting Armenian Christian holy sites in an effort to erase Armenian history from Artsakh. Azerbaijan’s government-affiliated Caucasus Muslims Board confirmed the demolition but framed the churches as illegitimate structures, a claim Armenian observers say reflects a broader campaign to deny the region’s historic Armenian Christian presence.

The concern is not new. Human rights advocates and scholars have previously documented the destruction of Armenian religious and cultural monuments in areas such as Nakhchivan, where thousands of medieval Armenian monuments, including churches, cemeteries, and khachkars, or carved cross-stones, were reportedly wiped away over past decades.

For Armenian Christians, the destruction in Stepanakert is not merely the loss of buildings. It is viewed as part of a wider attempt to remove the visible witness of centuries of Christian life from a land where churches and monasteries stood as symbols of worship, memory, and national identity.

Armenia’s Christian history reaches back to the earliest centuries of the Church. Armenia is widely recognized as the first nation to adopt Christianity as a state religion, traditionally dated to A.D. 301, under King Tiridates III and through the ministry of St. Gregory the Illuminator. The Armenian Apostolic Church became central not only to the country’s worship, but also to the preservation of Armenian identity through centuries of invasion, empire, and exile.

That Christian identity was nearly destroyed during the Armenian Genocide of 1915–1916, when Ottoman authorities carried out the physical destruction of Armenian Christian communities across the empire. The U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum describes the genocide as the annihilation of Armenian Christians in the Ottoman Empire, with at least 664,000 and possibly as many as 1.2 million Armenians dying through massacres, deportations, starvation, exposure, and systematic mistreatment.

Many Armenians refer to that period as their national holocaust — a campaign of death marches, dispossession, and attempted erasure that targeted a Christian people whose faith had endured for more than 1,600 years. The present destruction of churches in Artsakh therefore carries deep historical pain, reviving fears that what could not be fully accomplished by massacre is now being pursued through cultural and religious erasure.

International observers remain largely barred from many former Armenian population centers in Nagorno-Karabakh, leaving researchers and journalists dependent on satellite imagery and geolocation analysis to determine the fate of religious and cultural sites. Christian advocacy groups have increasingly described the destruction as cultural genocide, arguing that the demolition of churches cannot be separated from the forced removal of the Armenian Christian population that worshiped there.

The issue also threatens to cast a long shadow over diplomatic efforts between Armenia and Azerbaijan. While international officials continue to push for a regional peace agreement, Armenian Christian leaders warn that any peace that ignores religious freedom, the right of return, and the protection of Christian heritage risks legitimizing irreversible destruction.

Armenia remains one of the most Christian nations in the world, with the Armenian Apostolic Church still serving as the dominant religious institution. The U.S. State Department’s religious freedom report cited Armenia’s 2022 census showing approximately 97.5 percent of the population identifying as Armenian Apostolic.

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