Echmiadzin, Armenia, July 2010

From horror to beauty. From the desolate landscapes  of war of Abkhazia, on the Black Sea, we travel along the road crossing the Caucasian mountains and we get to Echmiadzin, the holy city of Armenia. The bells of the old cathedral are calling the faithful and we also let ourselves be attracted inside, a bit sleepy because of the long trip by night and the exhausting wait at the Georgian border.

Armenian liturgy, in this ancient cathedral, founded in 301, emotionally takes us from the inhuman world of man’s destruction to the divine one of faith building. Liturgy shines in a sensorial mix: sparkling colours that reflect on silvers and crystals, harrowing singing and little bells playing along with words, incense surrounding us, a crowd around the celebrant who is passing by and touching people, blessing like Christ among Palestinian masses.  If you let yourself go, you are grabbed and taken into the “cloud of unknowing”, as an ancient text recites.

In western countries we are wrong footed, used to acting and ding things, thinking and undertaking and we immediately understand that we are in the other half of the sky, in the other “lung” of church: “Unless you get your feet washed, you have no part with me”. In this liturgy Salvation is intended as a gift, not a conquest. The priests that accompany us to the visit to the “Armenian Vatican” open the safes - real safes! it’s not an idiom -  with the works of art of their church: a great alphabet in gold with inset precious stones and an invaluable magnificent golden cross delight our eyes.

It’s the sixth alphabet we have found since we left and we will see at least two more. Each Caucasian population shows them to us proudly. They have defended them with blood and they now have to abandon them if they want to understand each other, take care of their people and trade with the rest of the world. The incredible Abkhaz alphabet, made of 56 letters sounds like music when they recite it, but nobody ever writes it anymore. Besides, the times when all could communicate in Cyrillic, the period of the Soviet Russification, is behind. That language, even if it was sucked with milk by many generations, was not mother tongue, it was stepmother tongue. Freed from the imperialist pressure, no one wants to know about it. Russians, even if still present in Armenia, have demobilized, with Soviet collapse, leaving on the territory industries and houses in ruins: giant, ghostly monsters that summon desolation to desolation for those observing through the window.

Rondine is in the Caucasus to build trust relationships, without which peace is not possible. And suddenly a new opportunity is created. There is one person here that weaves daily trust relationships: it’s the Apostolic Nuncio, monsignor Claudio Gugerotti. He is now with the Archbishop of Arezzo, monsignor Riccardo Fontana, who arrived here also for reasons related to the Italian Caritas, he is in fact a member of its national presidency. In a meeting with the Catholicos Karekin II, head of the Armenian church, we decide that a young deacon, an exceptional painting talent, will come to Rondine to improve his studies. To hand one’s son to others for a long period is the maximum level of trust. Ecumenism is also promoted like this.

Satiated of miles and experiences we go to the hotel, in a dominant position in the capital. The window of my bedroom is in front of the Ararat mountain, imposing and legendary. The roves of many houses in Yerevan are still in eternity and remind me of the distance that separates us. Different feelings mix up: a word like Europe, often repeated over here, is the metaphor for hope and an evident ambiguity. It happens more often than what we think. We use the same words thinking we give them the same meaning. To get to know each other is a serious and slow process. To understand each other will take a long time.

Franco Vaccari, president of the organization Rondine Cittadella della Pace