Page 45 - THE ARMENIAN CHURCH_Neat

46 The Armenian Church

and, through their committed service and as
role models, after a long period of stagnation,
they instilled a new spiritual vitality and in-
tellectual creativity to the Armenian Church.

The Armenian Genocide
In the second half of the 19th Century,
the Ottoman Empire’s repression of the Ar-
menians increased. The Ottoman authorities
ignored the formal assurances guaranteed to
the Armenians by the treaties of San Stefano
and Berlin. The Armenian Church frequently
pleaded to the European powers to intercede
with the Ottoman authorities, but the pleas
fell on deaf ears.
Late in the 19th Century, the authorities
began enlisting local tribes throughout the
empire to commit violence against the Ar-
menians. Armenian political parties were
formed in order to defend the people:
In 1887 the Social Democrat Hunchakian
Party was created, followed, in 1890 by the
Armenian Revolutionary Federation. Using
the formation of these parties as a pretext,
the Ottoman-Turkish government organized
massacres in 1894-5 in Sassun and in 1908-9
in Adana. The Young Turks, who had come
to power in 1908, made their top priority
the restoration of a Pan-Turanian empire
stretching from the Mediterranean sea to the
Caspian sea, based on Turkish nationalistic