05.10.2023


A delegation led by the Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby of the Anglican Church, visited the Armenian Genocide Memorial complex on October 5.

The guests were welcomed by Harutyun Marutyan, AGMI Director, who described the history of the creation of the Memorial complex. He then told the story of the three khachkars placed within the confines of Tsitsernakaberd in memory of the Armenians who died in the massacres organised by the government of Azerbaijan in the cities of Sumgait, Kirovabad (Gandzak) and Baku at the end of the 20th century, as well as the biographies of the five freedom fighters buried in front of Memory Wall during the Artsakh struggle for survival, emphasising that the contemporary acts of persecution and violence against Armenians were a continuation of the Armenian Genocide.

The Archbishop of Canterbury laid a wreath at the Genocide Monument, after which the accompanying guests laid flowers at the Eternal Fire and observed a minute’s silence in memory of the innocent martyrs of the Armenian Genocide.

Mr. Marutyan accompanied the guests to the Memory Wall, which contains, in special niches in its reverse side, small containers of soil taken from the graves of a number of 19th and 20th century foreign public figures, politicians, intellectuals and missionaries who raised voices of protest against the massacres and deportations of Armenians carried out by the Turkish government.

The guests also toured the Armenian Genocide Museum accompanied by Lusine Abrahamyan, AGMI Deputy Director for Museum Affairs and became acquainted with the permanent and temporary exhibitions, after which the Archbishop of Canterbury left a note in the Memory Book for honoured guests.

Expressing thanks for their visit, both the AGMI Director Harutyun Marutyan and Shushan Khachatryan, head of the Armenian Genocide Victims and Survivors Documentation and Research Department, presented the guest of honour with books about the Armenian Genocide.

At the end of their visit, the guests also visited the Memory Park, where the Archbishop of Canterbury the Most Reverend Justin Welby watered the fir tree planted by the former Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams back in 2007.