‘With God’s help we will win the case’: Head of Crimean Armenian Society on St. George Church in Feodosia

The Court of Cassation ruled on the demolition of illegal buildings and the return of land plots to municipal ownership of Feodosia, Georgy Hakobyan, Head of the Crimean Armenian Society, told Alpha News, commenting on the situation with the Saint George Armenian Church, which is on the verge of collapse due to illegal construction.

“It’s a very long story. Even under Ukraine’s control, there was a mess; people ‘cut pieces of land’ for themselves, and it turned out that they also coveted our holy land, the area near the Saint George Church, and purchased land plots in the place where they were not supposed to. In fact, there were graves there, and later, when we started digging, we saw all this. Neighbors said that in the evenings they took out human bones in cars. So, in 2019, we stopped all this chaos and began to seek the truth through the courts to return these lands to Feodosia, to municipal authorities, so that no one else would build anything there,” Hakobyan said.

According to him, the legal proceedings lasted 4 years.

“We didn’t do very well in Feodosia, but we won the trial on appeal in Simferopol. A decision was made to demolish illegal buildings and return land plots to municipal ownership. The ‘owners’, unfortunately, did not stop there and decided that they would go further, to the court of cassation in the city of Krasnodar. We have two land lots there. Just yesterday, we won the case in Krasnodar; the next one will be on March 28, but with God’s help and our prayers, we will win it too. This is a protected zone, an object of cultural federal significance, an archaeological layer, an area where construction is practically prohibited, etc. Besides moral righteousness, the legal truth is also on our side,” Hakobyan noted.

According to the head of the Crimean Armenian Society, the problems began when few Armenians lived in Crimea.

“When there is no owner in the house, it begins to collapse. During all this time, many cultural heritage sites were destroyed, including temples from the 13th and 14th centuries. Now there are no problems with the Crimean authorities. They are fully meeting us halfway, helping us as much as possible,” Hakobyan concluded.

Saint George Church is a 14th-century Armenian church in Feodosia, former catholicon of the St. George Monastery, which in the 15th century was located outside the city. The church was rebuilt many times; the dome was built in the 19th century.