Dr. Claude Mutafian, Paris, France

In the four-fold division of the Old City of Jerusalem, the Christian and the Armenian Quarters are contiguous but independent. This situation corresponds to the ancientness and the importance of the Armenian presence.  Jerusalem has remained a myth for Armenians since the 4th century, when Christianity was proclaimed a national religion.

The relations of the Armenians with the Holy City have never ceased, and they culminated at the time of the Crusades, which gave the opportunity to found in Cilicia, at the end of the 11th century, an Armenian State bordering Frankish Syria, which was to convert into a Kingdom one century later. Jerusalem was then home to the seat of an Armenian Patriarchate, and the cultural activity was intense: inscriptions, sculptures, mosaics, pieces of goldsmithery, superb manuscripts decorated with miniatures, which are among the masterpieces of Armenian art. Under the rule of the Mamluks, Armenian culture continued to flourish in Jerusalem, and the accounts of European travelers never omitted a section devoted to the Armenians.

The aim of Dr. Mutafian’s new book is to present the relations between Armenia and Jerusalem in their historical and artistic context. The abundance of maps and genealogical charts makes it easy to read. The iconography plays a fundamental role, the text being essentially treated as captions for images, let them be reproductions of miniatures, monuments, works of art, or manuscript pages of historians and travelers.

In his talk, Dr. Mutafian will discuss the Armenians of Jerusalem and his new book.