Chairwoman of the US Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) Chair Nadine Maenza has expressed concern over Azerbaijan’s intention to erase Armenian inscriptions from churches.
“We are deeply concerned by Azerbaijan’s plans to remove Armenian Apostolic inscriptions from churches. We urge the government to preserve and protect places of worship and other religious and cultural sites,” she said.
Azerbaijan’s government has announced plans to erase Armenian inscriptions on religious sites in the occupied territories of Artsakh.
It justified the move by arguing that the churches in fact were originally the heritage of Caucasian Albania, an ancient kingdom once located in what is now Azerbaijan. The theory, which is not supported by mainstream historians, has long been propagated by nationalist Azerbaijani historians and has been embraced by the current government in Baku.
