Armenian Quarter
The monastery houses the Armenian Apostolic Church's Jerusalem Patriarchate, which was established as a diocese in the 7th century CE.
The patriarchate is the de facto administrator of the quarter and acts as a "mini-welfare state" for the approximately 2,000 Armenian residents.
The three Christian patriarchates of Jerusalem and the government of Armenia have publicly expressed their opposition to any political division of the two quarters.
[6] According to a 2007 study published by the International Peace and Cooperation Center, the quarter occupies an area of 0.126 km2 (126 dunam), which is 14% of the Old City's total.
[9] The convention of the boundaries of the Armenian Quarter may have originated in its current form in the 1841 British Royal Engineers map of Jerusalem,[10] or at least Reverend George Williams' subsequent labelling of it.
[10] The city had previously been divided into many more harat (Arabic: حارَة, romanized: Hārat: "quarters", "neighborhoods", "districts" or "areas", see wikt:حارة).
A large number of Armenian monks are recorded to have settled in Jerusalem as early as the 4th century,[17][18] after the uncovering of Christian holy places in the city.
[25] A secular community composed of merchants and artisans was established in the 6th century in the Zion Quarter, where an Armenian street existed (Ruda Armeniorum).
Destroying city walls and fortifications had been a staple of Mamluk governance in order to prevent the Crusaders from returning and reestablishing their rule.
The Mamluk government also engraved the following declaration in Arabic on the western entrance to the quarter: Jerusalemite historian Mujir al-Din provided a detailed description of pre-Ottoman Jerusalem in 1495 in which he mentioned Dir el-Arman (Monastery of the Armenians) or Kanisat Mar Ya'qub (St. James Cathedral).
Israeli historians Kark and Oren-Nordheim wrote in 2001: "The Armenian Quarter, although Christian, represented a distinct ethnic group with its particular language and culture, intent on retaining separate identity and unity, minimizing the contacts with Arabs and the Ottoman authorities for fear of persecution.
From 1915 and onward, thousands of Armenian genocide survivors from Cilicia (Adana Vilayet) found refuge, and settled in the quarter, increasing its population.
An Armenian civil guard, armed with "makeshift weapons", was formed to defend the quarter from the Haganah shelling of the Old City.
According to Reuters, the Armenian Patriarchate "share[s] a view held by the mostly Muslim Palestinians—that Israel's designation of the whole city as capital of the Jewish state means its control of residence and building permits is being used to press Arabs and other non-Jews to give up and leave.
"[4] A map published by the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in November 2015 indicated the Armenian Quarter in the color reserved for Palestinian communities.
[52] The limited space in the overpopulated district makes housing expensive and according to Boyadjian, "Most Armenians, given their current income, simply cannot afford to maintain their primary residence there.
Furthermore, clergy who have lived at the Armenian monastery compound for decades do not have residency status, and, thus, "pay as tourists for public services such as healthcare.
"[56] As of mid-2019 a memorial to the Armenian genocide on church property remained closed to visitors "because the municipality [had] delayed approving construction of the entrance.
"[56] In July 2021, a plot of land called Cows' Garden (Goveroun Bardez) was leased by the Armenian Patriarchate to Danny Rubenstein, a Jewish businessman from Australia.
[58] Father Baret Yeretzian, director of the Patriarchate's real estate department, who confirmed the deal, told him that the land was leased for 98 years and Rubenstein plans to build a luxurious hotel on the property.
[59] The Armenian Patriarchate said the deal, approved by the Holy Synod, was signed with "a corporate from the United Arab Emirates" and was expected to receive a net income of hundreds of thousands of dollars.
[60][61] The Mother See of Holy Etchmiadzin, the leading body of the Armenian Church, said the situation had disrupted the "internal solidarity and unity" within the Patriarchate and "reduce[d its] reputation."
Catholicos Karekin II urged Patriarch Nourhan Manougian to "reflect on the concerns through proper interpretation, and to restore solidarity in the Brotherhood.
"[63] Armenia's Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan discussed the issue with his counterparts from Jordan (Ayman Safadi),[64] Palestine (Riyad al-Maliki),[65] and Israel (Yair Lapid).
[66] Surveyors started working at the site in 2023 and a sign was posted listing XANA Capital Group, a Dubai-registered Israeli firm.
[7] Armenians began emigrating from Jerusalem's Old City in the mid-20th century,[49] being in the middle of the conflict between Arabs and Jews,[52][49] mainly since the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, and what Daphne Tsimhoni characterized as "their feeling of loneliness.
"[71] The lack of a longstanding political solution to the Israeli–Palestinian conflict for Jerusalem has been cited as the main cause of the decrease in the number of Armenians in the Old City, which fell by almost half from 1,598 in 1967 to 790 in 2006.
[85] The United Nations General Assembly considers East Jerusalem, of which the Old City is part, to be "Occupied Palestinian Territory".
[111] Aram I, the head of the Holy See of Cilicia, one of the sees of the Armenian Apostolic Church (based in Lebanon), stated in a 2017 meeting with Lebanese President Michel Aoun that Jerusalem should be an "open city for the three monotheistic religions: Jewish, Christian, and Muslim, and that the religious rights of these peoples should be protected within Jerusalem."
[113] Yasser Arafat rejected the US proposal at the 2000 Camp David Summit for the Old City's division and stated: "The Armenian quarter belongs to us.
