Among the ongoing deals to normalize Armenia-Azerbaijan relations, the recent Washington Summit between President Trump, Prime Minister Pashinyan and President Aliyev on August 8th has spotlighted the southernmost Armenian region. At the core of international trade routes between Asia and Europe, this strip of land has been fearing clashes not only after the events in Nagorno-Karabakh in 2023, but throughout centuries.

October 17, 2025 -
Michele Crestani
-
Articles and Commentary

The Vahanavank Monastery in southern Armenia’s Syunik province. Photo: Michele Crestani

The peace deal initiated in Washington DC speaks of a “Trump Route” that would go through Syunik province, bringing prosperity. But on the ground, the people who would be most affected are full of trepidation and desperately distrustful of Azerbaijan. If the Americans land with massive infrastructural projects, they may not find it so easy to win over hearts and minds.

One of them is 47-year-old Father Avetiq Mardirosian. In the garden of his monastery, he indicates a low wall with engravings in the grey stone. Among the Armenian crosses, there is carved a word to honour the past and forewarn the future of Syunik.

“We lost Nagorno-Karabakh because we did not love it, and God gave it to our enemy so that we would suffer on our skin. Now look here, it is written “remember”,” Father Avetiq says. “You must love and preserve. If you don’t love, God will take it from you,” he warns.

Father Avetiq serves as spiritual leader of the Vahanavank Monastery, a place where his story and Syunik’s come together. Born in Kirkuk, Northern Iraq, a city that hosts approximately 30 Armenian families and is home to Kurds, Iraqi Turkmens and Arabs, Father Avetiq’s eyes have met those of the same populations that dominated Syunik over a thousand years.

When in the 12th century Armenia was a fragmented set of kingdoms, Syunik was one of the last to fall under the pressure of the Turkish assaults. Once a stronghold of learning, the Vahanavank Monastery began its gradual decline. It fell into ruins after the 14th century, when attacks by Mongols and Turkmens brought the region to its knees and strangled Armenians with heavy taxation.

However, as Syunik had been swept by waves of foreign domination for the next centuries, Armenian monks followed the precept nowadays engraved in Vahanavank Monastery. They preserved cultural heritage and faith, like Avetiq did under Saddam Hussein’s radicalizing Iraq. Although he had to abrogate Christianity while in the army — “I was forced to say the Shahada, the Islamic declaration of faith; it was forbidden to disobey; it was the rule of Saddam,” he says — Avetiq later took his vows for the Armenian Apostolic Church in Kirkuk.

During the Middle Ages Tatev Monastery hosted one of the most important Universities of Armenia, which remarkably contributed to the preservation of its culture. Today, the monastery is considered one of the two most important monasteries in Armenia, along with Noravank Monastery. Photo: Michele Crestani