In purpose of commemorating the innocent victims of the Armenian Genocide dating back to 1915, one can count over 166 memorials across 31 countries.

However, on the 50th anniversary of the genocide, a particular memorial was intended to see the light following a mass protest that was initiated in Yerevan demanding the soviet authorities the recognition of the Armenian genocide. 

Two years later, on a grassy hill at a distance from the city center, above the Hrazdan gorge in Yerevan, stood a memorial of mourning and remembrance of the victims of the genocide. It was inaugurated through officials placing memorial garlands around the’ tomb’…. Another minute of silence, a different type of silence, was allowed…

At the time it was built, this memorial in Yerevan consisted of two elements —a tomb and an obelisk. 

The massive grey stone circular mausoleum has 12 slabs representing the 12 lost provinces in present day Turkey. An eternal flame inside took on the meaning of a collective grave.

A 44 meter high needle-shaped stone obelisk was also located next to the tomb. It symbolizes the rise of Armenian people from the dead.

No doubt the dominance of a cosmopolitan dimension in the architectonical forms was one of the prescriptions the architects followed in accomplishing their project. In his paper presented at the November 2007 conference in Yerevan, dedicated to the 40th anniversary of the memorial’s inauguration, the architect S. Kalashyan emphasized that “the memorial taken as a whole must be understandable for every visitor, irrespective of his or her nationality or religion”(Kalashyan 2007:2) maybe it’s the reason of absence of any ethnic Armenian signs or traditional inscriptions in the Armenian alphabet on the slabs and walls.

Anyhow, since its initiation, each 24th of April, this memorial redraws the attention of hundreds of thousands of people who walk to the genocide monument and lay flowers around the eternal flame.

(24 April 2015): Armenian Genocide celebrates its centennial.

And facing the Turkish authorities’100 years of silence and denial, Pope Francis , recently, defined the slaughter of the Armenian victims as “the first genocide of the 20th century,” quoting the statement made by St pope John Paul II. And in strong words the pontiff said it was “necessary, and indeed a duty,” to remember the Armenians killed, “for whenever memory fades, it means that evil allows wounds to fester. Concealing or denying evil is like allowing a wound to keep bleeding without bandaging it!”

Subsequently, we pray for all the sufferers from this genocide.

We also pray for brave hearts proclaiming truth without fear. Because truth should never be manipulated to appear as one of the many brands available in the ideological supermarket…. 

Yes, we pray for strong hearts that witness for true truth just like the burning fire on that hill of Tsitsernakaberd in Yerevan… A true truth, emerging from the resurrected Lord and blocking the door in face of all political and philosophical wolves….

On the centennial of the Armenian Genocide which coincides with the Easter time this year, it is good to remember that ‘one can put truth in a grave, but it won't stay there’!!!