By Paul Vartan Sookiasian
An international conference titled “Christianity in Azerbaijan: History and Modernity,” organized by the Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry, was held Thursday in Rome. The event is part of Azerbaijan’s ongoing campaign to reframe Armenian religious and cultural heritage in Nagorno-Karabakh as Azerbaijani, effectively erasing the region’s Armenian presence.
The conference took place at the Pontifical Gregorian University, a private Jesuit institution established by the Holy See, though contrary to the organizers’ claims, it is not located in the Vatican. The event was opened by Azerbaijan’s Ambassador to the Vatican, Ilgar Mukhtarov. A representative of the university told CivilNet that it had no involvement in the organization of the event and did not provide any patronage, clarifying that its only connection was the rental of a classroom space.
Promotional materials for the conference featured monuments such as the medieval Armenian monastery of Dadivank, attributing them instead to the ancient Caucasian Albanian culture. This is a narrative promoted by the Azerbaijani state despite the historical Albanian kingdom having ceased to exist centuries before such monuments were built.
According to Armine Tigranyan, a lecturer in Cultural Studies at Yerevan State University and member of the academic platform Monument Watch, this state-sponsored narrative “seeks not only to erase the historical roots of the Armenian people but also to limit their historical rights to live and create in the region.” The premise hinges on a widely discredited theory that modern Azerbaijanis are the direct descendants of the Christian Caucasian Albanians, and that all churches in Nagorno-Karabakh were built by them rather than Armenians. This discredited idea was created in the mid-20th century by Azerbaijani historian Ziya Bunyadov.
No institution within the field of Armenian Studies appears to have been informed about the conference, which was quietly planned and only publicly announced a day before it took place. CivilNet obtained a copy of the agenda, which echoed typical Azerbaijani state propaganda, claiming that “Azerbaijan guarantees the preservation and development of Christian heritage while promoting interfaith harmony.”
While the proceedings were not streamed publicly, insight into its rhetoric can be gained from this description of the talk given by Fuad Akhundov, who is described as an unaffiliated political scientist. His talk included many openly hostile statements toward Armenians.
Akhundov is quoted as claiming that “the Caucasian Albanian monuments located in Karabakh were destroyed, and deliberate efforts were made to alter their appearance and falsely present them as Armenian.”
There is no evidence for this claim, however it is documented that Armenian inscriptions were removed from churches in Azerbaijan during foreign-funded ‘restoration’ projects.
Akhundov went even further, casting doubt on Armenians being Christian at all. He reportedly emphasized that “Armenia increasingly displays characteristics that are not Christian, but anti-Christian.”
His presentation then strayed from the subject of Albanians altogether, making the case that Armenians are “aggressive settlers” alien to the South Caucasus region, that Yerevan is Azerbaijani, and perhaps most strangely, debunking the Biblical account of Noah’s Ark landing on Mount Ararat.
Despite the international nature of the conference, the vast majority of the presenters were from Azerbaijan. One of the few non-Azerbaijani professors listed told CivilNet they ultimately decided not to participate. Another listed speaker was a missionary from the Albanian Orthodox Church in Tirana, Albania- likely included due to confusion between the medieval Caucasian Albania and the modern Balkan country of the same name.
Such missteps highlight Azerbaijan’s instrumentalization of history not out of scholarly interest, but as a strategy to undermine Armenian cultural and historical claims. This parallels Azerbaijan’s recent appropriation of anti-colonial rhetoric specifically targeting France in retaliation for its support of Armenia.
This is not the first controversy involving anti-Armenian rhetoric linked to the Vatican. In August, an article printed in the Holy See’s official newspaper L’Observatore Romano described the author’s educational visit to “Caucasian Albania” (Nagorno-Karabakh after it was ethnically cleansed) that repeated Azerbaijan’s alternative history of the Armenian heritage sites. The Azerbaijani media then laundered the coverage as reinforcement of its false narratives.
The Vatican itself has faced criticism for appearing to legitimize Azerbaijan’s autocratic regime. Just months before launching their 2020 offensive on Nagorno-Karabakh, President Ilham Aliyev and First Lady Mehriban Aliyeva were received as special guests by Pope Francis. During that visit, Mehriban was awarded the Order of Pope Pius IX, the highest papal honor for a layperson. Ambassador Mukhtarov received the same distinction on April 3, just one week before hosting the Albanizing conference.
The Vatican was officially represented at the event, both through a letter of congratulations from Cardinal Claudio Gugerotti, Prefect of the Dicastery for the Eastern Churches, and through remarks by Bishop Vladimir Fekete, Apostolic Prefect of the Catholic Church in Azerbaijan.
Italian Professor Carlo Coppola, commenting on the situation, said he has already received messages of outrage from both Armenian and non-Armenian colleagues. He urged the Armenian government to raise the issue with Azerbaijan, saying it must “demand at least the formal non-involvement of third countries and cultural institutions in their propaganda policy, first of all to safeguard Armenia’s dignity and self-respect.”
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