Ongoing Projects: Artsakh: Between War and Peace: NKRWP_017

Father Hovhannes Hovhannesyan, abbot of the medieval monastery of Dadivank, performs an impromptu family baptism; anointing the children’s foreheads, palms and knees with chrism. With a minor delay in the handover of Kelbajar from Armenian to Azerbaijani control, thousands of Armenians flocked to Dadivank, one of the most beloved monasteries in all of Karabakh and Armenia, to bid it a final, painful farewell. Though uncertainty still looms over its long-term fate, in that brief window of time, Dadivank stood as a symbol for all that the Armenians had lost; absorbing the communal grief of a nation with each candle lit, and offering something that resembled comfort.

Father Hovhannes Hovhannesyan, abbot of the medieval monastery of Dadivank, performs an impromptu family baptism; anointing the children’s foreheads, palms and knees with chrism. With a minor delay in the handover of Kelbajar from Armenian to Azerbaijani control, thousands of Armenians flocked to Dadivank, one of the most beloved monasteries in all of Karabakh and Armenia, to bid it a final, painful farewell. Though uncertainty still looms over its long-term fate, in that brief window of time, Dadivank stood as a symbol for all that the Armenians had lost; absorbing the communal grief of a nation with each candle lit, and offering something that resembled comfort.