Церковь Сурб Еррордутюн (Манчестер, Англия)
Шаблон:Churcht Holy Trinity Armenian Apostolic Church of Manchester Армянская Апостольская Церковь Св. Креста г. Манчестераhttp://www.armenianchurchmanchester.org.uk/
The Holy Trinity Armenian Apostolic Church of Manchester is the oldest Armenian church in United Kingdom. It was consecrated on Easter Sunday in 1870.
There is a suggestion that Armenians - an ancient people with a history stretching back some 3,500 years - settled in Britain as early as the Roman times. There was almost certainly an Armenian presence in the British Isles by the time of the Crusades in the 13th Century. Contact with the British had been made in India and along trade routes that stretched from the Far East through the Middle East and Europe towards the United Kingdom, and in particular the fast emerging industrial town of Manchester.
However it was not really until the nineteenth century that the Armenians became a British community as such. The present Armenian community struck root at that time, with the arrival of Armenian merchants, students, and exiles from Ottoman Turkey. Their primary destination was the industrial city of Manchester, England. Initially they were economic migrants to the British Isles, albeit as a result of prohibitive and restrictive conditions in the Ottoman Empire. By the 1830s Manchester was the epitome and standard bearer of modern industrialisation, and King Cotton had natural attractions to the Armenian merchants, especially given their second class status under the Ottomans in their home country. As the Turkish Empire in the West gradually weakened over the period in which Manchester rose, so the Armenians living in the six provinces (or vilayets) of the Anatolian lands found their prospects becoming increasingly precarious and their treatment volatile at the hands of the Turks. From the 1830s up until the escalation of violence that constituted the beginning of the Armenian Genocide in 1915, the Armenians of the Ottoman Empire found themselves continually targeted and set aside for second class treatment. Bustling Manchester was an obvious target as a destination where the Armenians could live and trade without prejudice.
Initial settlers in Manchester arrived in 1835, in order to export silk to their various bases in Turkey, although as previously stated, they were not totally voluntary migrants and conditions for the Armenians in the Ottoman Empire were deteriorating rapidly. However initial settlers were not penniless refugees, but those whose wealth allowed them to make the move to England. By 1862, it is estimated that there were thirty Armenian businesses in Manchester. As with all immigrant groups in nineteenth century Britain, once they had accumulated some wealth they desired to mark their presence with a house of worship in the area in which they had settled. As a result, by 1870, the Holy Trinity Armenian Apostolic Church was completed on Upper Brook Street in Charlton, Manchester. Community organizations, such as the Armenian General Benevolent Union, were also first established in Manchester . The Manchester Armenians played a vital role in highlighting the plight of Armenians in their homeland, thus influencing British foreign policy towards Ottoman Turkey. Other Armenian families began to join the now established British Armenian community, arriving from places as diverse as the Caucasus, Tehran and Alexandria. At this stage in the development of the Armenian community, progress was good and there was distinct feeling of gratitude to their British hosts for allowing the Armenians to benefit from free trade in its truest form. Indeed, they referred to Britain as the "Happy Land". It was also during this period that the British community began to look towards the conditions of those left behind in Turkey, and in 1874 there was a concerted campaign to raise funds for destitute Armenians there. These Armenians were about to become spectators to a conflict that was to ultimately play a role in their relatives' massacre and genocide. The Russo-Turkish War of 1878 created a Turkish distrust of Armenians that was to be embellished by the Sultan Abdul Hamid II, looking for scapegoats for Turkey's defeat. In one of many parallels with the Jews of Nazi Germany, the Armenians became vilified as untrustworthy subjects and as economic benefactors from the immiseration of the native, in this case Turkish population.
Some extracts are taken from Joan George's book "Merchants in Exile" (Gomidas Institute Books 2002) which is a full account of how Armenians came to settle in Manchester.
229 Upper Brook Street Manchester M13 0FY United Kingdom
