YEREVAN (Azatutyun) — Azerbaijan’s government-controlled Islamic religious body confirmed and defended on Monday the destruction of Nagorno-Karabakh’s largest Armenian cathedral and another church located in Stepanakert.
It claimed that the Azerbaijani authorities had “both legal and moral grounds” for tearing them down.
“The demolition of two illegal buildings constructed during the [Armenian] occupation cannot be considered a destruction of religious or cultural heritage,” it said in a statement. “Formerly displaced persons returning to their homeland have repeatedly appealed to the [Azerbaijani] state and judicial bodies, demanding their dismantling.”
Evidence, including satellite images obtained by RFE/RL, of the recent demolition of Stepanakert’s Holy Mother of God Cathedral emerged last week. Earlier this month, Armenian media published photographs suggesting that the smaller Church of St. Jacob has been razed to the ground.
The images sparked an uproar from exiled Karabakh activists in Yerevan as well as Armenian opposition and public figures and the Armenian Apostolic Church. The church’s Mother See in Echmiadzin charged that the “state-level vandalism” is part of Baku’s efforts to “erase the Armenian trace from Artsakh.”
By contrast, Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan pointedly declined to condemn the demolitions. The Armenian government essentially stopped accusing Azerbaijan of systematically desecrating or destroying Armenian monuments in Karabakh after Pashinyan first recognized Azerbaijani sovereignty over the territory in 2022.
