Armenians mark a year of death and resurrection

Churches in Armenia are this year marking the centenary of the 1915 genocide, in which one and a half million Christian Armenians were killed by Ottoman Turks. The head of the Armenian Apostolic Church, Catholicos Garegin II, last week praised his country for “rising again from the ruins” after the genocide.

Above: The Akdamar church, one of the most precious remnants of Armenian culture. It was inaugurated as the Church of Surp Khach, or Holy Cross, in AD 921 on Akdamar Island on Lake Van, Turkey. A Mass was finally celebrated there in 2010, the first time since the genocide.