The Dadivank Monastery, which is located in occupied Artsakh, has been handed over to Azerbaijan’s so-called Udi community, Monument Watch reported.
After the end of the Artsakh War in 2020, Azerbaijan’s regime began its campaign of misappropriating Armenian cultural heritage. The Albanian-Udi, a Christian people who follow the Armenian Gregorian Church, were invited by the government to use former Armenian religious sites, including the Dadivank Monastery, for their own religious purposes.
Although the historic inscriptions preserved on the walls of Dadivank, as well as the khachkars on display, are tied directly to Armenians, Azerbaijan continues to push false narratives in an attempt to rewrite history.
Azerbaijan’s appropriation of Armenian cultural and religious heritage has been carried out using a “methodological manual” of propaganda built on a number of false premises, reported the Armenia-based “Geghard” Scientific Analytical Foundation.
According to Azerbaijanis, cultural sites that are linked to ethnic Armenians, especially those that are inscribed with Armenian script, are from the modern era. They claim that these historic sites were tampered with by Armenians either throughout the 19th century or during what they call “years of occupation” by Armenians in Artsakh.
This exact tactic has been used in the case of a 10th century Armenian fortress called Amberd. According to Faik Ismayilov, a researcher at the A. Bakikhanov Institute of History and Ethnology of Azerbaijan’s National Academy of Sciences, the Armenian inscriptions on the walls of the Vahramashen Church, located next to Amberd, were added in the early 20th century.
Based on several false claims made by scientists from Azerbaijan’s Academy of Sciences, Armenians allegedly started committing “material and spiritual crimes against Albanian churches” starting in 1836, when the “Albanian Church became a diocese was subjected to Etchmiadzin Church,” reported the Azertac Azerbaijan State News Agency.
This same false claim, that Armenians are adding inscriptions to cultural or religious heritage sites, has also been applied to the Dadivank Armenian Monastery, which came under Azerbaijani control in late November 2020.
Recently, Azerbaijani media outlet Report.az published a brief article, titled “The Major Azerbaijani Monastery Khudavang Subjected to Armenian Forgeries.” According to the article, between 1993 and 2020, “Armenians attempted to falsify the monastery’s history by presenting it as Armenian. For instance, the symbols of the complex were supposedly replaced, different crosses were installed, ancient Armenian inscriptions were added to the walls, and old Udi-Albanian graves were destroyed.”
In 2021, representatives of Azerbaijan’s Udi community visited Dadivank to conduct religious services, lead by head of the Albanian-Udi Christian Community Robert Mobili. Mobili is known for backing Azerbaijan’s false claims about Armenian heritage.
In 2024, L’Osservatore Romano, the official daily newspaper of the Vatican, published an article titled “Dadivank, Gandzasar, and Khatiravank Monasteries in the Clouds.” In the article, Dadivank and Gandzasar are not linked to Armenian heritage, but that of Albanian, with no shred of evidence.
The Azerbaijani government continues its anti-Armenian campaign of falsifying history by manipulating and concealing information, and using misinformation to rewrite history by creating a new narrative.
