Читать книгу Bleeding Armenia - M. Smbat Gabrielean - Страница 8

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The pressure on the reader’s sympathy will be relieved by the portrayal of a brief reign of peace in Armenia, but righteous indignation will not be lessened.

Ashod I., the son of Sumpad, the Confessor who died in chains at Bagdad, gathered the remains of his tribe together, after the retirement of Bogha, the Tyrant, and by his courage, wisdom and humanity became greatly esteemed. The Caliph of Bagdad in an hour of strange friendliness conferred on him the government of Armenia.

He sent him also a special messenger, bearing rich presents and splendid official robes, directing him to invest Ashod with the supreme power.

ARMENIAN TYPES AND COSTUMES.

His first effort was to restore confidence and improve the condition of the country, to the great satisfaction of all the Armenians. George II., Pontiff, and all the chiefs united in drawing up a petition to the Caliph soliciting him to bestow a crown upon Ashod, promising at the same time not to falter in their allegiance to the authority of Bagdad. To the great joy of all Armenians, their prayer was heard and a crown of royalty was sent. Basilius, the Emperor of Constantinople, who was an Armenian of the family of the Arsacids also sent him a magnificent crown. Thus patronized by two emperors, Ashod ascended with great splendor the throne of Armenia. All the ancient royal customs were restored and Armenia again became a great and flourishing country.

Armenia being now at peace, Ashod set out to visit Western Armenia, and thence he passed on to Constantinople to visit Emperor Leo, son of Basilius. His reception was magnificent. On his returning he fell sick—his malady increasing he sent for George, the Pontiff, and received the sacrament, after which he appointed that large sums should be distributed to the poor at the church doors and to hospitals, convents and almshouses. He died in his seventy-first year, having governed Armenia thirty-one years, viz: Twenty-six as governor and five as king. He was buried with all the royal magnificence due to an eastern Monarch.

In 892 the Caliph confirmed the crown to Sumpad, eldest son of Ashod and the ceremony of coronation was again performed. The treaty of his father was renewed with the Emperor of Constantinople, but his reign proved to be a stormy one through successive invasions of the Persians. At length he was enticed into the power of Yussuf, the Persian, bound in chains and cast into a dark dungeon for a year. From prison he was taken before the walls of a castle which was being besieged. Furious with rage because of the continued resistance, Yussuf caused the most horrible barbarities to be executed upon the unfortunate Sumpad in sight of the beleaguered Armenians. The torture was renewed daily to cause him to deny Christ. Then hourly until death released his unshaken spirit.

Ashod II., surnamed the Iron-hearted, famed for bravery and extraordinary strength, son of Sumpad, now gathered a small body of six hundred men like himself and began to drive out the Persians. Soon he cleared the country of them and in gratitude the Armenians placed him on the throne. But many chiefs refused him their allegiance. They were a restless, jealous set of nobles, and these quarrels among themselves are by all their historians denounced as the chief source of their national weakness.

Nobles and peasants rose in rebellion, and Yussuf taking advantage of the anarchy again brought upon them his fiercest bands.

The former cruelties, and persecutions and barbarities were repeated. Aged men and women were tied together and then cut to pieces, babes were tossed in the air to be caught on the points of the spears or cut in twain with their swords, or dashed to the ground in the presence of their distracted and dishonored mothers.

Religious fanaticism was burning like the fires of hell in the breast of Yussuf and yet these Armenians though ready to fight against each other would die the death of martyrs rather than deny their Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.

Greater horrors followed on the devastation of their fields. Sore and dreadful famine began its cruel work. Thousands died of starvation. Cities and villages were attacked solely for the sake of devouring the slain. Individuals were seized and slain by bands of men driven to madness by their hunger.

There was no Red Cross Committee in those days for the relief of the starving populations and even if so, no person wearing a cross would have been permitted to carry to them a loaf of bread lest the religious sensibilities of Yussuf and his Infidel hordes should be deeply wounded.

Starvation was his best ally. It swept off multitudes he could not reach with the sword. The tender heart of the Sultan of Turkey must not to-day be lacerated with even suggestion that there is more mercy under the cross than under his own blood-red crescent. He turns fair and fertile provinces into cemeteries and makes of villages heaps of ruins, then publishes to Europe that he has restored peace to his people.

Peace returned to Armenia for twenty-five years however after the driving out of the Persians, Apas succeeding his brother Ashod II. Multitudes of self-exiled Armenians returned to their deserted fields and ruined villages, and peace soon made the valleys smile again.

Cities were restored, magnificent churches erected. The city of Ani was chosen as the new capital. But Ashod III., derives his greatest fame from his private virtues. Having built a number of hospitals, infirmaries and almshouses for the poor and suffering he gave his personal attention to their management. He visited them frequently, indulging in kindliest familiarity with the poorest.

He even invited the poor, the sick and the maimed to eat with him at his own table. So unbounded was he in his donations to the poor and distressed that on his death not a single piece of money was found in his treasury. Hence he was surnamed the charitable.

These are the kind of men whom for more than a thousand years the Saracens and Turks have been trying to exterminate as dogs of Christians. And the work still goes fearfully on because the great Christian Powers of Europe say the Turk must be upheld and reverenced because he holds the balance of power. It would not do to offer him anything more than a diplomatic hint that some slight reform might be acceptable even if only put on paper to show to the guardians of poor, perishing Armenia.

Sumpad II., succeeded his father and completed the fortifying of the city of Ani. He surrounded it with a wall of exceeding height and thickness on which he raised lofty towers for the stations of its defenders. The wall was protected from assault by a wide, deep moat encompassing the city the whole being faced with stone and brick. It took him eight years to finish it. This city became the center of power and influence. A very large number of churches were erected so that in all they reached the surprising number of one thousand and one. The next largest city was Ardgen containing three hundred thousand souls and eight hundred churches.

The Empire was consolidated and strong and retained its prosperity and power until some years after the close of the century, (A. D., 1020).

Let us leave for a while this ancient race at the height of its power and glory, the only Christian Nation that western Asia has ever had, and take a glance at the uprising of that power of Islam which to-day is, as for more than a thousand years it has been, the bitterest foe of the Church of Christ, the most ruthless destroyer of human life, the most brutal oppressor of enslaved humanity, which has always and everywhere robbed woman of her honor and immortality, motherhood of its glory, childhood of its innocence, the Deity of His mercy and even Heaven itself of its purity, making of Paradise its vestibule only a Mohammedan Seraglio.