A Letter From Armenian Two Wounded Soldiers

To His Holiness Pope John Paul II Karabagh, June, 1992

A Letter From Armenian Two Wounded Soldiers

Dear Holy Father, We, two wounded Armenian soldiers, are vary grateful to you and to Vatican, to the Caritas Organization, and to the whole Italian nation for your help and compassion toward Armenian nation in her current crisis.
By directing this letter to you, we would like to speak from our very hearts as your sons in honesty and sincerity, begging you to accept this letter as a confession in its own kind.
Starting from 1988 we and thousand Armenians like us were insisted to put aside our professions, to take a weapon and to fight in order to prevent the abomination and sacrilege which no further is possible to tolerate. Here is our story, the story of eyewitnesses, which we present to your attention.
Indeed you know the long-suffered life road of Armenian nation . By the will of God our nation has dwelled not in a geographical comport zone; we were surrounded by fanatically hostile Islamic nations throughout history, wars and deprivations were always on our lot. These nations always remain as a bloody enemies of Christian people, and the historical facts not once have proved this truth.
Our story had occurred not in a distant dark Middle Ages, Father, no, it occurs right now, in this very moment in mountains of Armenian provinces.
Our nation is in a war , and we assure you, this war has been imposed on us.
For the centuries in past, and under the totalitarian regime of Communism recently, Armenian nation has been subjected to physical and spiritual annihilation . Always the enemy has tried to depopulate our fatherland by forcing us out from our homes and killing our civilians by using an extreme ruse and cunning politics, or it tries to degenerate our national identity entangling us in a falsehood of political/religious various ideologies.
And today, despite of hunger and deprivation, blood and pain- every Armenian had stood up for ultimate battle, a battle which will establish the truth and justice at last.
Today Armenian National Defense Army has been created for a sole purpose of self-defense, and in a blood of every enlisted soldier there is a gene of our martyred ancestors; you can not find a single Armenian soldier who does not have one victim in his family killed by Turk’s sword, or Bolshevik despotism.
Today our nation stood up for ultimate battle with weapon and prayers to take back and to readopt our spiritual and material values which were trampled by enemies of God. We fight with unbreakable self -confidence and there is no power on earth which could deprive us from the right to live on our ancestors’ lands, which is a holy depository of Holy Altars, creative art and architecture, manuscripts and holy graves; it preserves in our ancestors’ sacred bones and sacraments, starting from Apostle Thaddeus to the last Armenian child who refused to be converted to Islam and was band-raped and slaughtered .
Let no one in the world doubts the will and determination of the nation which confirms the justice by sacrificing everything, sacrificing everything to keep up the Light of our Lord Jesus Christ. Today our battle is about keeping that Light up.
It is nearly four years we are in a war with Azeri-Tatars, and as witnesses we can say that this nation with its religious fanaticism always was and remains a criminal.
We witness, we have heard by radio-network before the battle starts, how these barbarians are being instructed by Mullah, who calls for “Jihad,” promising special honors and decorations for those who will not show a mercy, and will destroy and kill everything on his way; starting from houses and trees/ plants to thecivil inhabitants and animals- everything organic and inorganic ordered to be deserted and evened.
After this, the ceremonial series of curses directed to the Holy Cross and Christ’s Person Himself are followed.
Every Armenian soldier is convinced , that our fight is achieved by the power and help of Almighty, because we have seen so much miracles confirming God’s presence and blessings.
And one of the greatest miracles is that we always fight with three times less human and mechanical resources than Azeris. Very often we fight against them by the weapon we could get after defeating them in battles.
We call this self-defensive war legitimate and desperately try to implement the internationally established law and regulation , which is impossible to do.
After every battle the burial of killed soldiers and collection of wounded ones is a big problem. Azeris use the truce status and open a fire on us meanwhile we collect bodies. Many of our soldiers had been killed not in a war field, but during this action of collecting wounded and dead.
Azeris, under the barbaric rule of their army, torture our prisoners with most cruel ways and then kill them immediately or put them to slow death ; they inject a petroleum into a prisoners, which dies in a terrible agony.
Every day we are witnessing the words of Victor Hugo, “ The Turk has passed through.”
I, Samvel Hovanissian, in a village Kornizor of Goris province have found a family killed in a destroyed home, and when I entered the other room, I have found the seven year-old child nailed on the floor dying with luminous face. I could not save him.
Another time, I secretly sneaked into the Turkish village. In a Turkish home I saw everybody- women, children, men- with big curiosity were observing the electric stove, on the top which the Armenian swaddled baby had been put to burn. I could save the baby this time.
In a province Martuni, the Armenian husband in order to transport his wife who was in labor to the hospital, had no choice but to cross the Azeri village. On the road of Garadaglu, Azeris had stopped his car and in the very presence of the husband, they cut off the abdomen of a woman killing her and mutilating the baby.
After couple months, the person who committed this crime, the police officer of the village, has been turned into my hands by God's Will…
Holy Father, do you think that after all I should release the monster who would continue his crimes against mankind and God, and that would be a Christian act? No, I say with conviction. This monster as well as another – the famous “national hero” of Azeris, well-known Ismailov, who committed Sumgait atrocities mutilating, raping, and killing innocent civilians by attacking Armenian districts at night, yes, Holy Father, I killed them both with my own hands, and I feel blessed by doing so.
I beg you on my knees, Holy Father, pray for me, pray for those whose fate is bitter, the test is horrible, for us, who in order to be Christian should commit things contrary to our conscious. Pray for me, for being unworthy of Jesus Christ’s Name, I though shed my blood and sacrifice my life for His Name.
From our fathers’ saintly manuscripts we know a traditional story preserved that The Saint John The Baptist’s Head is buried in a Ganzasar Church, Karabagh, which Saint Apostle Bartholomew brought to Armenia in I A.D. Today under the constant bombardments and fire every day our priests offer a Holy Mass on the Altar of that church. Miraculously no bomb or bullet ever hit the ancient cathedral.
In every deliberated village we organize to offer a Holy Mass and minister the Holy Eucharist.
By the efforts of soldiers, we build Saint Virgin’s Shrine in Yerevan, where the army will get a religious education.
I assure you, Holy Father, wherever Armenians get a piece of land, they build the churches upon.
No Islamic “Jihad” or Western degenerated ideologies/morals will hinder us to rebuild and confirm our holy faith and our national values.
In Garabagh, during the defense of Erkedj Church, it suddenly had been caught by fire from the hit of enemy’s missile. We were panicked. We put down our weapon and started to pray. The fire miraculously stopped leaving the church unharmed.
In Shushy All-Savior’s Church we have witnessed the same; during the holy service the enemy started the fire from Katiusha missile. All buildings of the city had been destroyed, but the church had remained intact.
Now the political world insists us to put down our weapon, for the Karabagh problem is unnecessary to them , and there is no chance that the politicians will be interested in philanthropy. They are immoral and pervert in their very essence for all times and contrary which is good .
In fact, we dream about it- to put down our weapon, but we don’t have a right to do so, because we have seen with our eyes from Gulistan village of Shahumian province to Mardakert the mutilated bodies of Armenian women and children scattered all across the woods. This kind of “peace” which the world imposes on us, is a factual death for Armenian nation, once already killed by Turks and by Western politicians in the beginning of our century.
Will the world once again deliver the Armenian Nation to the devil itself, will once more the sufferings of Armenians mean nothing to all, and the horrific crimes committed by Turk-Tatar-Azeries ignored?
We know and we are convinced that for centuries and today the Armenian nation is being martyred to preserve its national essence of Christianity. This essence only originates a spirit in which we can confirm our sublime ideals.
Pray for us, Holy Father, and pray for this world, because the world which tolerates and supports the abominable nation of Turk-Azeris, is condemned to self-destruction already.
Pray for the peace of Jesus Christ and be advised that Armenian cause is for the achievement of that peace.