#sargis

Sargis - Title Page of the Gospel of John, 1300-1310.

This richly decorated leaf emphasizes the Gospel of John as the summation of the four Gospels by including the symbols of the four evangelists—an angel for Saint Matthew, a lion for Saint Mark, an ox for Saint Luke, an eagle for Saint John—in the large first letter, or incipit, and in the elaborate headpiece over the text. Byzantine-style geometric patterns fill the rest of the incipit. Bird-shaped letters form the first words of the text. At the top is Christ, framed by peacocks, who raises his hand in blessing. Early Armenian theologians described birds as representing souls flying to heaven.

Credit: The Metropolitan Museum of Art

'Azeri grandma with Armenian soldier' a photo featured in the French newspaper "Libération' of Sheikha Khanum, age 81 hugging Sargis Hatspanyan in Karvachar, April 1993. Sargis himself has talked about the photo in an interview:

'There was an 81-year-old woman – Sheikha Khanum who was respected by everybody. She was a poet. I liked talking to her. She used to say: “This war is not the war of our two people, we like Armenians, we all know that this is the country of Armenians, there are Armenian graves everywhere, cross-stones, everywhere there are marks of Armenian culture”. And during this talk Zaven Khachikyan unnoticeably took our photo.' 

He also addressed discovering that the Turkish newspaper 'Milliyet' had used the picture in their own article, captioning it 'Azeri woman with her grandson, presenting him as an Azeri soldier: