The Speakers

His Holiness Karekin II, Catholicos of all Armenians

Was born as Ktrij Nersessian in Voskehat, Armenia, on August 21, 1951. He entered the Gevorkian Theological Seminary at Echmiadzin in 1965 and graduated with honors in 1971. He was ordained to the diaconate in 1970. Later he became a monk and was ordained a priest in 1972. In the late 1970s he continued his studies in Vienna, Bonn University, and Zagorsk, Russia. On October 23, 1983, he was consecrated bishop at Echmiadzin. He became an archbishop in 1992. Karekin II speaks fluent German from his time in Germany and Austria. In 1975 during his time in Cologne he was the spiritual representative of nine Armenian congregations in Germany. In 1988 Karekin took an active role in helping his people overcome the Armenian earthquake. He oversaw the construction of churches and schools in Armenia. On 27 October 1999 he was elected the 132nd Catholicos of All Armenians at the Mother See of Holy Etchmiadzin, succeeding Karekin I. His relations with Pope John Paul II were generally positive. When the Pope visited Armenia in 2001, he stayed with the Catholicos. In October 2007, he began a second visit to the United States. On October 10, 2007, he offered the opening prayer for the day's session of the United States House of Representatives. His ecumenical trip to India to meet Baselios Thoma Didymos I, Catholicos of the East in November 2008, helped strengthen relations between the Armenian and Indian Orthodox Churches. The delegates to the 10th General Assembly of the World Council of Churches that took place in Busan, South Korea, on November 4, unanimously elected Catholicos of All Armenians Karekin II, the supreme patriarch and head of the Armenian Apostolic Church, head of the organization for the next eight years. On 26 June 2016, Catholicos Karekin and Pope Francis signed a joint declaration on the secularization of society and its "alienation from the spiritual and divine", affirmed that the Catholic and Armenian Apostolic churches share a marriage–based view of the family. It also lamented "immense tragedy" of the widespread persecution of Christians in the Middle East; the Pope and the Catholicos prayed "for a change of heart in all those who commit such crimes and those who are in a position to stop the violence".

Keynote Speaker

Human Rights Defender of Armenia, PH.D in Law, Associate Professor

Dr. Arman Tatoyan

Dr. Arman Tatoyan, the Human Rights Defender of Armenia, Ph. D. in Law, Associate professor Dr. Tatoyan is elected by the Parliament of Armenia for a period of 6 years as the Human Rights Defender of Armenia. He is also the head of the National Preventive Mechanism in Armenia. He served as an Ad hoc Judge of European Court of Human Rights (2016-2020) and an International Adviser of the Council of Europe (2013-2018).  In 2019 Dr. Tatoyan was reelected by the Council of Europe Committee of Ministers as a member of the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture (CPT) in respect of Armenia (he served his first CPT mandate in 2011-2013).   Dr. Tatoyan holds an LLM degree from the University of Pennsylvania Law School - honored with Distinguished Member Award of LL.M Class of 2013. During the same period he completed the Wharton Business School Executive Education Program at the University of Pennsylvania.  Currently, he is an Adjunct Professor at the American University of Armenia and the Yerevan State University. Prior to his election as the Human Rights Defender of Armenia, Dr. Tatoyan served as a Deputy Minister of Justice of Armenia (2013-2016) and a Deputy Representative (Deputy Agent) of Armenia before the European Court of Human Rights (2013 –2016). Dr. Tatoyan received his Ph.D. degree in Law from the Yerevan State University in 2007. He has extensive professional experience, including working in the Constitutional Court and the Cassation Court of Armenia, as well as in civil society and international organizations (UN, OSCE, USAID, etc.)

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President of the Mother See Committee of Artsakh Cultural-Spiritual Heritage, USA

His Eminence Archbishop

Vicken Aykazian

His Eminence Archbishop Vicken Aykazian Ecumenical Director and Diocesan Legate. He is the Ecumenical Director and Diocesan Legate of the Diocese of the Armenian Church of America (Eastern), in which capacity he has served since January of 2000. Archbishop Aykazian was born in Siirt, Turkey, in 1951. He studied theology at the Armenian Patriarchate in Jerusalem and was ordained a deacon in 1968 and a celibate priest in 1971. In 1992, His Holiness Vasken I, the late Supreme Patriarch and Catholicos of all Armenians, ordained him a bishop. In addition to his seminary education in Jerusalem and at the Holy Cross Armenian Seminary in Istanbul, he received a Bachelor of Divinity degree from Kings College in London; studied pastoral theology at St. Augustine’s College in Canterbury, England; received his Ph.D. from the Armenian Academy of Sciences’ Department of History; and completed the Ph.D. course requirements at Fribourg Catholic University in Switzerland. In a ministry that has taken him around the world, he has served the Armenian Church in diverse roles. He acted as dragoman at the Armenian Patriarchate of Jerusalem and athletic instructor of the Jerusalem seminary; preacher at the Armenian churches in Istanbul and assistant to Archbishop Shnork Kaloustyan, then-Armenian Patriarch of Constantinople; pastor of the Armenian Church of Switzerland from 1980 to 1992, where he established and organized new church communities in Zurich, Bern, Kreazlingen, and Lugano. He became Primate of the Diocese of the Armenian Church of Switzerland in 1992, serving until 1996. In 1997, he assumed the role of director of the Fund for Armenian Relief’s office in the Republic of Armenia until 1999. In 2007, he was elected as president of the National Council of Churches of Christ (NCC) in the USA and served his term from 2008 through 2009. He was the first Oriental Orthodox clergyman to serve as president of America’s leading ecumenical organization and currently sits on the executive board of the NCC, as well as on the board of the World Council of Churches, where his involvement has been extensive and continuous since 1985, including positions on the WCC’s Mission and Evangelism Unit 2 (1991-99), its Orthodox Task Force (1982-92), and membership on its Central Committee. As Diocesan Legate and Ecumenical Director, Archbishop Aykazian is a prominent representative of the Armenian Church and a spokesman for Armenian causes in the United States.

Reverend Professor Ioan Sauca

Acting General Secretary of the World Council of Churches

On 17 February, 2021, the World Council of Churches (WCC) executive committee extended the contract of Rev. Prof. Dr Ioan Sauca as the acting general secretary until the end of December 2022, ensuring continuity in leadership to the WCC 11th Assembly which will take place August-September 2022. Sauca, a priest of the Orthodox Church in Romania, has served as Professor of Missiology and Ecumenical Theology at the Ecumenical Institute Bossey since 1998 and as its director since 2001. Before his appointment as acting general secretary in April 2020, he served as a WCC deputy general secretary since 2014 in the areas of unity, mission, ecumenical relations, youth, interreligious dialogue and cooperation, worship and spirituality, as well as ecumenical formation. Sauca first joined the WCC in 1994 as executive secretary for Orthodox Studies and Relationship in Mission. Prior to joining the WCC, he taught mission and ecumenism at the faculty of theology in Sibiu, Romania, and later served his patriarchate as head of the newly established Department of Press and Communication, with additional responsibility for the Department for External and Ecumenical Church Relations and of religious education in public schools. Sauca studied in the Theological Faculties in Sibiu and Bucharest, Romania, and earned his Ph.D. in Theology at the University of Birmingham, UK, with a dissertation on “The Missionary Implications of Eastern Orthodox Ecclesiology.” He is also an alumnus of the Graduate School at the Ecumenical Institute in Bossey. While his publications in five languages range across the theological loci, from mission to Christology, ecclesiology and its inner relation to eschatology, they centre on what he has called “the ecumenical vocation of Orthodoxy” and Orthodox contributions to ecumenism. An early publication, Orthodoxy and Cultures, probed the relationship of the gospel to cultures (1996), while a later one, edited with Tim Grass, explored prospects for Building Bridges: Between the Orthodox and Evangelical Traditions (2012).

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President of the Christian Solidarity International, Switzerland

John Eibner

John Eibner is President of Christian Solidarity International (CSI), and also serves as CEO of CSI-Switzerland and as President of CSI-USA. For over three decades he has directed field-based research and human rights advocacy campaigns on behalf of endangered religious communities in Sudan, Nigeria, the Caucuses, and the broader Middle East. Dr. Eibner’s most recent initiatives have been to document and campaign against the threat of eradication faced by Christian communities and other religious minorities in the Levant and Mesopotamia. He frequently travels on human rights and humanitarian aid missions to Syria and Iraq, and other frontline regions. He is perhaps best known for having traveled deep into war-torn Sudan over 100 times since 1995 to document jihad slavery in Sudan. Eibner’s first frontline project for CSI focused on the religious cleansing of Armenian Christians in Nagorno Karabakh the early 1990s. Dr. Eibner has served as CSI's main representative at the United Nations in Geneva, and has appeared before the US House of Representatives Subcommittees on the Middle East and Africa, and before the Congressional Human Rights Caucus. He has briefed policy makers at the White House, State Department, and UK Foreign Office. From 1986 to 1990, Eibner was on the research staff of Keston College, a UK-based research institute for the study of religion in Marxist-Leninist countries. Eibner graduated from Barrington College, with a BA degree in History. He went on to receive his Ph.D. in History from the University of London. Dr. Eibner has written for The Times, the New York Times, the BBC, The Boston Globe, The Wall Street Journal Europe, The Washington Times, The Middle East Quarterly, The Globe and Mail, Slavonic and East European Review, Keston News Service, The Tablet, and many other publications. He also edited The Future of Religious Minorities in the Middle East, New York: Lexington Book, 2018, and contributed to Christianity in North Africa and West Asia, edited by K.R. Ross, M. Tadros, and T.M. Johnson, Edinburgh University Press, 2018.

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General Secretary and President of the National Council of Churches, USA

Jim Winkler

Is President and General Secretary of the National Council of Churches and is well-known among United Methodists for his nearly 30 years of service at the General Board of Church and Society of The United Methodist Church. At the Board of Church and Society, he held the position of seminar designer, director of annual conference relations, and assistant general secretary of resourcing congregational life before his election as general secretary in 2000. As top executive of the Board, Winkler focused on the implementation of the United Methodist Social Principles through education, witness, and advocacy. In 2013, Winkler was elected as president and general secretary of the NCC. The NCC is an ecumenical partnership of thirty-eight Christian faith groups in the United States. Its member denominations, churches, conventions, and archdioceses include Protestant, Anglican, Orthodox, Evangelical, historic African-American, and Living Peace traditions – in a common commitment to advocate and represent God’s love and promise of unity in our public square. As president and general secretary, Winkler is the public voice of the NCC and represents the Council as it addresses its major priorities: mass incarceration and interreligious relationships with a focus on peace. In 2019 the Council officially added the priority of ending racism. Winkler studied African history at the University of Illinois, received a master’s degree in American history at George Mason University, and was granted an honorary doctor of divinity degree from Claremont School of Theology. He attends Fairlington United Methodist Church in Alexandria, Virginia, where his wife, Michelle Tello, is the office manager. Jim has three children.

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Independent Member of the House of Lords, Founder and CEO of Humanitarian Aid Relief Trust, UK

The Rt. Hon. Baroness Caroline Cox

Baroness (Caroline) Cox was created a Life Peer in 1982 and was a deputy speaker of the House of Lords from 1985 to 2005.  She was Founder Chancellor of Bournemouth University; Chancellor of Liverpool Hope University from 2006-2013 and is an Hon. Vice President of the Royal College of Nursing.   She was a founder Trustee of MERLIN [Medical Emergency Relief International] and is Founder and President of HART [Humanitarian Aid Relief Trust]. Her humanitarian work takes her to conflict and post-conflict zones, including the Armenian enclave of Nagorno Karabakh, Sudan, South Sudan, Nigeria, Uganda, Syria, the Shan and Chin regions of Burma. Previously, she visited communities suffering from conflict in Indonesia, helping to establish the International Islamic Christian Organisation for Reconciliation and Reconstruction (IICORR) with late former President Abdurrhaman Wahid. She has visited North Korea to promote Parliamentary initiatives and medical programmes. Caroline Cox has been honoured with the Commander Cross of the Order of Merit of the Republic of Poland; the Wilberforce Award; the International Mother Teresa Award from the All India Christian Council; the Mkhitar Gosh Medal conferred by the President of the Republic of Armenia; and the anniversary medal presented by Lech Walesa.  She has been awarded an Honorary Fellowship of the Royal College of Surgeons of England and Honorary Doctorates by universities in the United Kingdom, the United States of America, the Russian Federation and Armenia.

This presentation will focus (briefly) on 4 topics: 1. The obligation for Christians to support victims of persecution. ‘When one part of the Body of Christ suffers, we all suffer’ (1 Corinthians 12, v. 26) 2. The obligation for Christians to support victims of persecution. ‘When one part of the Body of Christ suffers, we all suffer’ (1 Corinthians 12, v. 26) 3. Continuing impunity of perpetrators with Azerbaijan and Nigeria as examples 4. Concern over escalating Islamist jihadist policies and their implications for the future of Christianity 5. The urgent need for adequate responses by churches and governments. 

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Primate of the Coptic Orthodox Diocese of London

Archbishop Angaelos

Archbishop Angaelos is the Coptic Orthodox Archbishop of London, Papal Legate to the United Kingdom, and Director of Refcemi (The Coptic Orthodox Office fore Advocacy and Public Policy). He is known for his extensive advocacy work, being conferred the honour of Officer of the Most Excellent Order of the Brittish Empire by Her Majesty The Queen for "Services to International Religious Freedom." His Eminence has also been conferred the Lambeth Cross for Ecumenism by the Archbishop of Cantebury, and the Coventry Cross of Nails for Reconciliation. With a pastoral ministry spanning more than two decades, Archbishop Angaelos continues to serve an expansive international youth ministry. Archbishop Angaelos specialises initiatives relating to advocacy, internation religious freedom and develepment work, and is a member of, and chairs, numerous local, national and internatioanal bodies dealing with these matters. He is a founder and convener of the Asylum Advocay Group which works closely in partnership with the All Party Parliamentary Group on International Religious Freedom or Belief. Archbisop Angaelos issues statemens and comments relatin to current religious and minority issues, with his particular forcus on dialoge, conflict- resolution, and reconciliation. his comments and views are frequently sought on matters of human rights, civil liberties and international religious freedom, particularly in relation to the situation in Egypt, the Middle East, and North Africa. He has visited refugee camps in Greece, Lebanon, Kurdistan and Jordan, and continues to work tirelessly to promote collaboration across the whole sprectrumof his official, ecumenical and inter-religious engagements, to facilitate the support of and assistance to those in greatest need and suffering persecution and displacement.

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Human Rights Officer/SGBV Specialist

Sheila Paylan

Reverend Christian Krieger

Keynote Speaker

CEC President

Was elected president of CEC at its 2018 Novi Sad General Assembly. A pastor and theologian from Strasbourg, he has extensive experience with ecumenical, social, and ecclesial engagements. He serves as president of the Reformed Church in Alsace and Lorraine and vice-president of both the Union of Protestant Churches in Alsace and Lorraine and the Protestant Federation of France. He grew up in Alsace in a Lutheran family deeply engaged with the church. He was educated in Protestant theology with emphasis on history at the University of Strasbourg, France. Married, father of two children, living in Strasbourg, Rev. Krieger is marked by the history of his region and feels deeply a European citizen. Rev. Christian Krieger has edited a number of publications on subjects related to theology, church history, ecumenism, education, and ethics.

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Very Rev. Cor. Episcopos Professor Patrick Sookhdeo PhD, DD

International Director of Barnabas Fund, UK

The Very Rev Cor Episcopos Professor Patrick Sookhdeo PhD, DD is Director of the Institute for the Study of Islam and Christianity, International Director of Barnabas Fund, Executive Director of the Oxford Centre for Religion and Public Life, and President of the Westminster Institute, Washington DC. He gained his PhD from the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, and has also been awarded doctorates from Western Seminary, Oregon and Nashotah House Episcopal Seminary, Wisconsin, for work on human rights and religious liberty, and from Serampore University, India. He has been Visiting Professor at the Defence Academy of the UK and Cranfield University, and Adjunct Professor at the George C. Marshall Center for Security Studies. He is Cor Episcopos of the Syriac Orthodox Church. Professor Sookhdeo is a Research Associate in the Department of Religion Studies at the Faculty of Theology and Religion at the University of Pretoria, South Africa, and has taught and lectured at many academic institutions around the world. He is the author/editor of nearly 40 books.

The last 70 years have seen a rapid rise in religiously-motivated violence. This is not dissimilar to what took place 100 years ago when the Ottoman Muslims sought the extermination of Armenian, Assyrian, Syriac and Greek Christians. There are a number of reasons given for this including religious territoriality, nationalism, return to source texts, anti-colonial and anti-Western attitudes. The result is that religiously inspired violence is occurring on an alarming scale in many parts of the world in 2021. How is this to be addressed? What are the roles of human rights and religious freedom and can they mitigate the tendency to violent extremism?

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Bishop Hovakim Manukyan

Primate of the Diocese of the Armenian Church in the United Kingdom and Ireland

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Bishop Vrtanes Abrahamyan

Primate of the Artsakh Diocese

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Visiting Scholar at Tufts University and Lecturer in International Relations at the University of Colorado Denver, USA

Mr. Simon Maghakyan

Simon Maghakyan is a Denver-based political scientist, human rights advocate, and investigative researcher. Maghakyan’s advocacy and public service tenure includes serving as Amnesty International USA’s primary specialist and campaigner for the ex-USSR, leading the Armenian National Committee of America’s community development in 18 Western Region states, managing civics education at Colorado’s legislature, and coordinating Save Armenian Monuments. His academic experience includes lecturing in international relations at the University of Colorado Denver and serving, in a newly-appointed capacity, as visiting scholar at Tufts University. Maghakyan is a PhD student in International Heritage Crime at Cranfield University.  Since December 2005, when Azerbaijan’s army eradicated the world’s largest medieval Armenian cemetery at Djulfa, Maghakyan has been investigating and building awareness about cultural erasure. This work has resulted in numerous groundbreaking publications and collaborative initiatives, including the online project Djulfa.com; the American Association for the Advancement of Science’s pioneer satellite investigation into cultural destruction; the Colorado State Capitol replica Djulfa khachkar memorial; the widely-cited 2019 Hyperallergic exposé of Azerbaijan's covert erasure of over 28,000 medieval Armenian monuments in Nakhichevan; and the 2021 Art Newspaper investigation geolocating in declassified Cold War spy satellite imagery the now-destroyed churches of Agulis.

 Drawing from his decade-long investigative research into the covert erasure of sacred Armenian sites in the autonomous republic of Nakhichevan, Maghakyan will dissect the politics of cultural erasure in Azerbaijan and discuss current motivations for the ongoing destruction of historical sites in the wider Artsakh region. Upon reviewing preventative mechanisms against cultural genocide, Maghakyan will argue that bicommunal respect for religious freedom and its local practices could reverse regional politics of erasure and build ground for long-term cultural preservation and peace. 

Head of Department of Cultural Studies, YSU, Armenia

Dr. Hamlet Petrosyan

Is the Head of Department of Cultural Studies in the Yerevan State University (YSU), Armenia and a researcher and professor at the Institute of Archaeology of the National Academy of Sciences of Armenia. He was the chief of excavations of Tigranakert in Artsakh and has extensive background in excavations and archaeological research, as well as analytical studies on ancient cites in the Middle East. He received his MA in 1978, Ph.D. in 1984 and Doctoral Degree in 2004 from the YSU and the Institute of Archaeology and Ethnography of NAS Armenia. Dr. Petrosyan serves as a Senior research fellow in the IAE since 1981. He was a Visiting Professor, Department of Archaeology and Anthropology and Department of Armenian History, Yerevan State University during 1992- 2007, Chief, Department of Paleo-ethnography, State Museum of Ethnography of Armenia, 1978-80. His professional interests include Middle Eastern and Armenian Culture, Monuments, Epigraphy, Traditional World-perception, Ethnic Identity, Tolerance, Ethnic and Social Exceptions, Gender and Poverty. He is a member or on the Board of numerous international organizations and is the recipient of President's award in Humanitarian Studies, 2009.

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Human Rights Defender of the

Republic of Artsakh

Mr. Gegham Stepanyan

Director of Beth Mardutho and Editor- in Chief of Gorgias Press, USA

Dr. George Kiraz

George A. Kiraz is a Senior Research Associate at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton and teaches Syriac at Princeton University. He is a specialist in Syriac studies and the digital humanities. He has written and edited more than two dozen books and published over 70 papers. He is currently preparing a Syriac-English bilingual of the Syriac Bible.

Aramaeans and Armenians shared a geographical area for many centuries. This contact gave rise or a rich Syriac-Armenian cultural exchange which falls within the rubrics of "tangible" and "intangible" cultural heritage. This presentation concentrates on the intellectual cultural exchange between Armenians and Syriacs which can be both tangible (e.g. manuscripts and archival material), but also intangible (e.g. the literature itself). The field of Armenian-Syriac cultural exchange is in its infancy to the degree that one cannot find an introductory description of the topic. This talk will exemplify the literary-cultural exchange and will put forward some proposals as to how it can be preserved. 

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Author, Cultural Activist and Entrepreneur, Netherlands

Tasoula Hadjitofi

Tasoula Hadjitofi has devoted more than three decades to combatting the illegal trade in religious cultural heritage and advocating for stronger laws to prevent art trafficking. She is the author of “The Icon Hunter,” which traces her journey from a ruptured childhood as a refugee from Famagusta, Cyprus, to her success as an entrepreneur in The Hague, where she served as Honorary Consul for Cyprus and took up her campaign to repatriate artifacts stolen from her homeland. She founded her NGO, Walk of Truth, in 2011.

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Associate Professor, Department of History, Lafayette College, Easton, USA

Dr. Rachel Goshgarian

Rachel Goshgarian is Associate Professor of History at Lafayette College. She is a social historian who is deeply interested in the circulation of ideas, patterns of social organization and the communication of cultural ideals. She works with primary sources composed in Armenian, Arabic, Persian, Turkish and Armeno-Turkish, and her academic work is also deeply informed by interrogations and interpretations of material culture. Her first monograph, The City in Late Medieval Anatolia: Inter-faith Interactions and Urbanism in the Middle East, is forthcoming with I.B. Tauris in 2021. Goshgarian has also co-edited Architecture and Landscape in Medieval Anatolia, 1100-1500 with Patricia Blessing (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2017) and co-authored Kendi Kendine Ermenice (or, Teach Yourself Armenian) with Şükru Ilıçak (Istanbul: Armenian Patriarchate, 2006). Goshgarian has authored numerous articles related to late medieval Armenian history, forthcoming articles include: “Late Medieval Anatolia as Frontier Space: Searching for a ‘Middle Ground’ in Armenia(n)?,” History Compass (2021); “A Code(x) of His Own: Deacon Mikayēl, Armeno-Turkish and the Creative Conventions of ‘Collecting’ in 17th-century Kaffa,” in Texts, Lives, Places and Processes: Essays on the Ottoman World and Beyond in Honor of Cemal Kafadar, co-edited by Goshgarian, with Ilham Khuri-Makdisi and Ali Yaycioğlu. (Brighton: Academic Studies Press, 2021); and “Hṙomkla/Rumkale in Armenian Sources: the Unreachable Fortress of Ecumenism and Cultural Production,” in Rum Kale, ed. Scott Redford (Istanbul: Ofset, 2021). She is also in the midst of completing research for her second monograph, Armeno-Turkish and the Space of Language in the Late Medieval and Early Modern Worlds: Manuscript Production and the Circulation of Ideas, Literature, and People. She is a member of both the Middle East Studies Association and the Society for Armenian Studies, is an Advisory Board member of the Journal of the Society for Armenian Studies and Reviews and Reconsiderations Editor of Journal of the Society for Armenian Studies. Formerly, Goshgarian was Director of the Krikor and Clara Zohrab Information Center, 2007-2010, during which time she was Ordjanian Visiting Professor of Armenian Studies at Columbia University, New York, NY, (Spring 2008) and organized the “First Global Armenian Library Conference” with Fr. Asoghik Karapetyan, held at the Vazgenian Seminary of the Mother See of Holy Etchmiadzin in Armenia (August 2009).

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Professor at Tufts University, Art History Department, USA

Dr. Christina Maranci

Is Arthur H. Dadian and Ara Oztemel Professor of Armenian Art and Architecture and Department Chair at the Tufts School of Arts and Sciences. She received her BA from Vassar College and her MA and PhD, from Princeton University. Dr. Marantsi specializes in Armenian and Byzantine art and architecture. She is a prolific writer and the author of 3 books and over 90 research articles. She has been invited to make numerous keynote speeches and lectures on or related to art history and architecture. She is on the editorial board of many journals and has chaired or been a panelist in numerous workshops and panel discussions. She is a reviewer of grant proposals for the NFS and many other organizations and has extensively been invited to make media appearances. Christina has mentored many Ph D students and led many advisory and doctoral committees.

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Dr. Heghnar Zeitlian Watenpaugh

Professor of Art History, Department of Art and Art History, University of California, Davis, USA

Dr. Heghnar Watenpaugh is Professor of Art History at the University of California, Davis. She is a specialist of the history of art in the Middle East. She is the author of a book on the architecture of Aleppo, Syria, which received an award from the Society of Architectural Historians. Her new book, The Missing Pages: The Modern Life of a Medieval Manuscript, from Genocide to Justice, is a biography of a Gospel book illuminated by Toros Roslin, the greatest medieval Armenian artist. Widely acclaimed, The Missing Pages is the first book to receive prizes from both the Society for Armenian Studies and the Ottoman and Turkish Studies Association. The book also won the Gold Medal in World History from the Independent Publisher Book Awards, and it was shortlisted for the William Saroyan International Prize for Writing (non-fiction). Professor Watenpaugh’s research has been supported by fellowships from the J. Paul Getty Trust, Fulbright-Hays, Social Science Research Council, Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts at the National Gallery of Art, and the President of the University of California. Professor Watenpaugh was recently named a fellow of the Guggenheim Foundation and a National Endowment for the Humanities Public Scholar. Professor Watenpaugh has served on the boards of the Society of Architectural Historians, the Historians of Islamic Art Association, and is currently on the board of the Syrian Studies Association.

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Director of the Center for the Study of the Christian East at the University of Salzburg, Austria

Dr. Jasmine Dum Tragut

Dr. Dr. Jasmine Dum Tragut Bach.Nat.Sc., Assoc. Prof. of Armenian Studies and Linguistics. She directs the University of Salzburg’s Center for the Study of the Christian East and its Armenian Studies, and researches as senior scientist at the Department of Biblical Studies and Church History. She has been closely cooperating with various institutions in Armenia for over 30 years and has contributed to the establishment of Armenian Studies in Austria through numerous interdisciplinary research projects, publications and lectures. She is an honorary doctor of the Armenian Academy of Sciences, and has been awarded many times in Armenia, including the Franz Werfel Medal, the Aurora Mardiganian Medal, the Gold Order of Merit of the RA Ministry of Education, Science, Culture and Sports, and the Order of the Tavush Cross. Currently she is working on interdisciplinary research projects “Tracing female monasticism in Southern Armenia, “Religious diversity in Armenia” in cooperation with Yerevan State University, as head of the scientific group “Sociolinguistics of Armenian” at the Acharyan Institute of Linguistics at the Armenian Academy of Sciences and in a new international project on medieval Armenian equine manuscripts in cooperation with the Matenadaran. She is also a consultant and board member of the ecumenical foundation PRO ORIENTE, heads the Austrian Committee for the Protection of Armenian Cultural Heritage in Artsakh and in this function is also a board member of Blue Shield Austria.

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Very Rev. Fr. Garegin Hambardzumyan

Head of Office for Artsakh Spiritual-Cultural Heritage Issues, RA

Very Rev. Fr. Garegin Hambardzumyan (Armenia) Fr. Garegin was born in Armenia in 1986. He was admitted to Gevorkian Theological Seminary (Holy Etchmiadzin) in 2002 and graduated in 2008 with distinction, obtaining BA and MA degrees in Theology. In 2006, he was ordained to the diaconate. Three years later Fr. Garegin was ordained a priest and became a member of the Brotherhood of Holy Etchmiadzin. From 2009-10, Fr. Garegin was the head of the Department of Church and State Relations of the Mother See of Holy Etchmiadzin. In 2010, he travelled to the UK to pursue further academic studies at the University of Sheffield and for two years resided at the College of the Resurrection (Mirfield). In 2011, Fr. Garegin was offered a PhD program at Sheffield, which he did in combination with studies at Oxford University. While working on his research at Oxford, Fr. Garegin gave lectures and tutored in various colleges of the University as well as at the Oriental Institute. In 2010, Fr. Garegin was appointed as a visiting pastor of Birmingham and Oxford mission parishes as well as Holy Trinity Armenian Church parish in Manchester. For one year (2013-14) Fr. Garegin was the visiting pastor St. Yeghiche Church in London. Upon completion of his PhD program Fr. Garegin returned to Armenia assuming the position of Deputy-Head of the Department of Christian Education of the Mother See of Holy Etchmiadzin. In 2015, Fr. Garegin Hambardzumyan was appointed as Dean of Gevorkian Theological Seminary of Holy Etchmiadzin.  Since 2020 Fr. Garegin is the Head of the Christian Mission Department of Holy Etchmaidzin and the director of the Office for Artsakh Spiritual-Cultural Heritage Issues.

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Representative of the Republic of Armenia before the European Court of Human Rights

Yeghishe Kirakosyan

Yeghishe Kirakosyan is the Representative of Armenia before the European Court of Human Rights. He has an extensive experience of working with the Government since 2008, in the capacity of an Assistant to the Prime Minister, later as Deputy Minister of Justice. Y. Kirakosyan has been teaching since 2006, after defending Ph.D. thesis (title: Custom in Contemporary International Law). Courses taught include: Public International Law, Precedent in International Law, International Courts and Arbitration.
Y. Kirakosyan research and academic focus includes international courts and arbitration, responsibility in international law, countermeasure and enforcement of international law. Higher Education 2018, Master of Science of Law (JSM), Stanford Law School
2010, Master of Laws in International Legal Studies (LLM), Georgetown University Law Center
2006, Ph.D. in International Law, Yerevan State University
2004, Master’s Degree in Jurisprudence (International Law), Yerevan State University
2002, Bachelor’s Degree in Jurisprudence, Yerevan State University

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Save Armenian Monuments (USA)

Virginia Davies

Virginia Davies was born and raised in Toronto Canada prior to moving to New York City. Her deep commitment to the economic and political empowerment of the underrepresented and underserved reflects not only her heritage as the granddaughter of Armenian genocide survivors but  also her financial experiences as the daughter of a small business owner. Her career has been in government , banking and the not for profit sector. Highlights include the following: As a lawyer at the Department of Justice (Canada) she appeared before the Supreme Court of Canada in the landmark case Involving religious freedom - Regina v.  Big M Mart Ltd. As an executive officer at Bank of Montreal in the retail and commercial banking division and as a member of the local Chamber of Commerce she experienced first hand the banking challenges of small and medium enterprises and sought ways to improve access to finance - especially for women owned enterprises and underserved communities including First Nations People. As the first Vice President of Capital Partners at the then newly founded United Nations Foundation she helped implement the emerging concept of public-private partnership for international development. As a board member of the Tanenbaum Center for Inter-religious understanding she delivered a paper of the organization on the Kaduna riots at the Peace and Reconciliation conferences organized by the Joan Kroc foundation at Jinja, Uganda. Her experience as a board member of ProMujer microcredit lead her to return to school where she completed a doctorate in law and published a work focused on financial sector architecture for SMEs - Banking for Growth. As a member of an international team she has recently been developing a  post Covid response for SMEs focusing on supply chain development and community currency. She is the founder of a new not for profit Women Startup Armenia- which will focus on women owned businesses in rural Armenia. In 2009 she was a co-founder of Women Elect which runs a leadership program to prepare women to run for political office. She is the founder of several digital small businesses.

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Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Artsakh

Mr. David Babayan

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Minister of Education, Science,

Culture and Sport of the Republic of Artsakh

Ms. Lusine Gharakhanyan

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Blue Shield Austria, Roerich Society Austria (A)

Leylya Strobl

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Hayk Mkrtchyan

ICOM Armenia, Chair

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Regional Center for Cultural Heritage.

Ani Avagyan

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The Right Rev. Robert Innes

Bishop of Gibraltar in Europe

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Vice-Chairman of the Department of

External Church Relations of the Patriarchate of Moscow, Russia

Fr. Philaret Bulekov

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Secretary to the Department of Ecumenical Relations of Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church of India

Fr. Abraham Thomas

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His Excellency Archbishop Jose Avelino Bettencourt

Apostolic Nuncio to Armenia

Archimadrate Ignatios Sotiriadis

Greek Orthodox Church

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His Eminence Archbishop Mor George Kourieh

Patriarchal Vicar in Belgium, France and Luxembourg

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Fr. Nikademus Yokhanaev

Priest of the Assyrian Community of Armenia

Deena Dulgerian

Lawyer