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Archaeologists Uncover One of the World’s Oldest Christian Churches

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By New York Post. Archaeologists recently uncovered what they believe to be one of the oldest Christian churches in the world. . .

The remains of the ancient Christian building were found at the Artaxata site in the Ararat Plain [in Armenia].

“The find consists of an octagonal building with cruciform extensions,” the University of Münster explained. . .

The find is fitting in Armenia, which the University of Münster says was the first Christian state ever established. (Read more from “Archaeologists uncover one of the world’s oldest Christian churches” HERE)

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Press Release from University of Munster

Archaeologists from the National Academy of Sciences of Armenia and the University of Münster have discovered the remains of a previously unknown early Christian church in the ancient city of Artaxata. The find consists of an octagonal building with cruciform extensions. The team excavated parts of the church and studied it using geophysical methods. “The 4th century building is the oldest archaeologically documented church in the country – sensational evidence for early Christianity in Armenia,” remarked Professor Achim Lichtenberger of the University of Münster. “Octagonal churches were unknown here until now, but we are very familiar with them from the Eastern Mediterranean region, where they first appeared in the 4th century AD,” added Dr Mkrtich H. Zardaryan of the National Academy of Sciences of Armenia.

Typologically, the find corresponds to early Christian memorial buildings. In the cross-shaped extensions, the researchers discovered the remains of wooden platforms, which were radiocarbon dated to the mid-4th century AD. The octagonal building, around 30 metres in diameter, had a simple mortar floor and terracotta tiles. Finds of marble indicate that it was lavishly decorated with this material imported from the Mediterranean. The German-Armenian team has been in Armenia since September. They will continue their excavations and hope to make new discoveries, including the question of to whom the church was dedicated.

Background:

According to legend, Gregory the Illuminator converted the Armenian king Tiridates III to Christianity in Artaxata in 301 AD, making Armenia the first Christian state in the world. The medieval monastery of Khor Virap, just a stone’s throw from the now-discovered church, is a reminder of this tradition. Artaxata served as the capital of the Kingdom of Armenia, ruled by the Artaxiad and Arsacid dynasties. The city developed into an important metropolis in the Hellenistic period and was the capital of the Kingdom of Armenia for almost six centuries.

The Armenian-German research team has been exploring the Hellenistic metropolis of Artaxata in the Ararat Plain since 2018. The excavation project on the settlement archaeology of the ancient city is funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG) and the National Academy of Sciences of Armenia.

(Read the full press release HERE)

Host of Young Turks and Al Gore’s Cable Network is a Holocaust Denier

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Photo credit: z@doune

Apparently, the Young Turk’s Cenk Uygur’s “Turkish pride” has short-circuited his own brain cells to the point that he actually denies the Armenian holocaust – that other great, ethnically driven genocidal catastrophe of the 20th century.

Though Uygur has not made much of his unusual (and, shall we say, historically indefensible) convictions during his time at MSNBC or Current, he’s held them for a very long time, the record shows.

Back in 1999, Uygur wrote a letter to the editor of Salon disputing the Armenian genocide as a fabrication of self-deluded Armenian historians.

“I am a Turkish-American, and I am sure my views will also be looked upon with a certain wariness, but I do not subscribe to the idea that I am disqualified from objectivity by my ethnicity,” Uygur wrote about an earlier article in the online magazine. “First, at the very beginning of the article, you seem to reach a conclusion – ‘The central Armenian experience of the 20th century, after all, was the death of as many as 1.5 million Armenians …’ and ‘Every neutral scholar agrees that the Turkish position is propaganda.’”

Like other holocaust-deniers – including those of the anti-Semitic variety – Uygur explains that the Christian Armenian deaths at the hands of the Muslim Turks was all just a matter of war propaganda – in this case World War I that brought an end to the Ottoman Empire. The U.S. was behind it all, Uyger wrote, just “as it [was] with Germany.” The other problem, he said, was that there weren’t enough “Turkish-Americans to combat the insinuations of savagery.”

Read more from his story HERE.