A History of Protestant missions in the near East

Protestant Missions in Turkey and Armenia 143
beforehand, and that he had been purposely supplied with
false information (Hepworth, " Through Armenia," pp. 169ff.).
According to carefully prepared statistics, 88,243 Armenians,
of whom about 10,000 were Protestants, were murdered, and
more than 500,000 robbed of all they possessed ; 2,493 villages
and towns were plundered ;
568 churches, of which fifty were
Protestant, were pillaged and destroyed, and 282 others were
turned into mosques. It was characteristic that in many
places the victims were offered the choice between death and
Muhammadanism. It was only necessary to repeat the Muhammadan
Khalima (La illah, etc.),
with the knife already at their
throats, or to lift a finger as a sign of assent, and they were
spared. They thus became the brethren of their enemies,
and, if possible, the new bond was sealed by the marriage of
a convert with a Muhammadan. The massacres were not due
to a question of race but to one of religion. Christianity was
the enemy. "Who shall blame them, if,
harassed and
threatened with death, no fewer than 646 villages and even
fifty-five priests joined Islam ?
It is true that terrible pangs of
conscience followed such apostasy when the danger was past.
Apostasy from Islam is punished with death, and in their
fanatical fury Muhammadans did not waver for a moment in
executing the " holy law." Only in a few villages were the
British consuls able to procure for Christians, thus converted
by force to 1
Islam, liberty to return to their Church.
The heroism of the Armenians, both Gregorians and Protestants,
was admirable.
" Death rather than deny our
"
faith
was their motto. Many died as Christian martyrs. Twentyfive
Protestant ministers and 175 Gregorian priests were
massacred, often after unspeakable tortures. The names of
the murdered members of the churches have to a great extent
remained unrecorded ;
but they are written in the Book of
Life. They will receive their reward from the hand of Him
1
The most characteristic case in point was, perhaps, that of Biredjik on the
Euphrates, where the entire Christian congregation of about 1,000 souls adopted
Islam in the hour of danger, but through British intervention were permitted to
reembrace Christianity.