Your trusted source

Azerbaijan has destroyed the Armenian church of St. Hovhannes Mkrtich (St. John the Baptist) in Shushi, Artsakh, the Caucasus Heritage Watch alerts.

The watchdog said the church was destroyed between 28 December 2023 and 4 April 2024, calling it Azerbaijan’s "most egregious violation yet" of a December 2021 order by the International Court of Justice.

Built by Armenians in 1847, the church, a.k.a. Kanach Zham (green chapel), was damaged amidst the 2020 war. In the aftermath of the war, the Baku diocese of the Russian Orthodox Church laid claim to the building and pledged restoration. Nevertheless, the church is now gone.

At the entrance to the belfry, building inscriptions in Armenian read: “St. Hovhannes Mkrtich Church was built by Shushi townsman baron Hovhannes and Baba Stepanyan Hovnanents in memory of their deceased brother Mkrtich in the year of 1847.”

The European Armenian Federation for Justice and Democracy (EAFJD) also reported the church demolition in a social media post on Thursday.

"Azerbaijan has demolished the historic Armenian Church of St. John the Baptist (known as Kanach Zham), constructed in 1818, located in the occupied region of Shushi (Nagorno-Karabakh/Artsakh). Satellite images confirm that the church was razed to the ground in February 2024. This deliberate act by Azerbaijan signifies a systematic erasure of Armenian heritage from their ancestral lands," EAFJD wrote on X.