The ongoing threats to Armenian religious sites in Artsakh, known also as Nagorno-Karabakh, have escalated with the reported demolition of another significant church by Azerbaijan. Satellite data from Caucasus Heritage Watch (CHW) has verified that the Holy Mother of God Church, located in the former capital Stepanakert, was destroyed within the past eight weeks.
The Artsakh Tourism and Cultural Development Agency announced the church’s destruction on social media on Tuesday, April 21, just days before the 111th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide. Although the agency did not provide images of the demolition, CHW identified corroborating satellite photos from March 3 and April 2.
“Higher resolution imagery will give us a clearer picture soon,” stated the CHW researchers. “We will also continue collaborating with satellite image providers to obtain more precise data on the timing of this event.” Unlike the ancient sites affected since the September 2023 displacement of over 130,000 Armenians, the Holy Mother of God Church, consecrated in 2019, was used as a bomb shelter during the 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.
Academics caution that Azerbaijan’s intensified destruction of Armenian heritage sites since its 2023 takeover of Artsakh equates to “cultural genocide.” This destruction follows the resignation of Armenian Genocide Museum-Institute Director Edita Gzoyan, who was asked to step down by Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan after an incident involving U.S. Vice President JD Vance during a February visit to Yerevan.
Pashinyan, facing reelection on June 7, has been criticized for the dissolution of the autonomous state and maintains that further talks on Artsakh threaten the 2025 peace agreement with Azerbaijan. On April 20, he reiterated that discussions on the return of ethnic Armenians to the region are closed to preserve peace. This April 24, the world will again remember the 1.5 million Armenians killed in the 1915 genocide, a tragedy denied by Turkey and Azerbaijan.
