Zaven I Der Yeghiayan

Armenian Patriarch of Constantinople in 1915Also: Zaven Der Yeghiayan, Patriarch Zaven, Zaven Ter-Eghiayan

The archbishop who was Armenian Patriarch of Constantinople when the deportations of 1915 began. German embassy papers show him asking the Ottoman ministers about the arrests and reporting to the embassy on the fate of his people.

A report of 21 April 1915 from the Armenian Catholicos about events at Zeitun, forwarded by the German consulate at Adana, is addressed to “Archbishop Zaven, Armenian Patriarch in Constantinople” (Lepsius, Deutschland und Armenien no. 34, p. 53). After the arrests of 24 and 25 April in the capital, the German embassy reported, the Patriarch asked the Grand Vizier and the Minister of the Interior for the reasons (Lepsius, Deutschland und Armenien no. 38, pp. 59–60). Embassy notes of the summer and of December 1915 record what he told its staff: that Vramian, the Armenian deputy for Van, had been arrested and then killed at Bitlis (Lepsius, Deutschland und Armenien no. 101, p. 92), and that Armenians from Anatolia living in the capital were still being arrested and expelled (Lepsius, Deutschland und Armenien no. 214, p. 206).

Johannes Lepsius writes that an Ottoman law of 1 August 1916 abolished the patriarchate of Constantinople and joined it with the catholicosates of Sis and Aghtamar in one office, which was removed to Jerusalem (Lepsius, Deutschland und Armenien introduction, p. XLIII). See the Destruction of the Armenian and Assyrian Christians.

In the timeline

The Destruction of the Armenian and Assyrian Christians

From April 1915 the Ottoman government deports Armenians from across the empire toward the Syrian desert, and the American ambassador reports massacre, starvation and the destruction of a people. Assyrian Christians of Urmia and Hakkari are attacked in the same months.

Zaven I Der Yeghiayan

In the timeline

Primary sources

Deutschland und Armenien 1914–1918: Sammlung diplomatischer Aktenstücke