Islamic State Destroys Armenian Church

Monday, October 6, 2014

By Joseph DeCaro, Worthy News Correspondent

DAMSASCUS (Worthy News)-- Jihadists from the Islamic State have destroyed a Syrian church that memorialized the Armenian Genocide in which more than a million Armenian and Assyrian Christians died at the hands of Turkish Muslims.

According to Barnabas Aid, after seizing the Syrian city of Deir al-Zour, jihadists used explosives to destroy Holy Martyrs Church. News of the church's destruction came as Armenia was celebrating the 23rd anniversary of its independence.

Constructed in 1990, the church compound contained a memorial and a museum that housed records that documented the genocide. Holy Martyrs is also a pilgrimage where Armenian Christians from Syria and other countries gather every April 24 to remember those who were murdered.

Deir al-Zour is called the Auschwitz of the Armenian Genocide because thousands of Armenian and Assyrian Christians were forcibly taken from their homes by Turkish soldiers and marched to Deir to their deaths.