World’s Largest Yezidi Temple Opens in Armenia

The previous Yazidi temple in Aknalich (Wikimedia Commons)

The world’s largest Yezidi temple opened in Aknalich, Armenia, on September 29. The name of the temple is “Quba heft merê dîwanê u Tawûsê Melek,” which translates to “Malek Taus and the Seven Angels.” 

The temple stands in the village of Aknalich, less than 30 miles west of Yerevan, the Armenian capital. Designed by architect Artak Ghulyan, the temple was primarily funded by Yezidi businessman Mirza Sloian. The temple has seven domes, each topped with a golden sun, which serve as a reference to the seven angels in the Yezidi religion. 

After several years of construction, the temple carries great cultural and religious significance for the Yezidis, the largest minority group in Armenia. The construction of the temple stands in contrast to the historical memory of the genocide of the Yezidis and the genocide of the Armenians. The temple’s significance reaches far beyond Armenia.

The majority of the Yezidi population is in Iraq and Syria, where a genocide perpetrated by the Islamic State (ISIS) against the Yezidis has resulted in 5,000 deaths since August 2014. The United Nations Human Rights Council has confirmed that this mass atrocity is a genocide, saying that “over 3,200 Yazidi women and children are still held by ISIS ... in Syria where Yazidi females continue to be sexually enslaved and Yazidi boys, indoctrinated, trained, and used in hostilities.”

The Yezidi were also targetted during the Armenian Genocide of 1915, during which they fled from Turkey in the Death Marches alongside the Armenians. 

“It is symbolic and logical that the largest Yezidi temple in the world is in Armenia. Armenia is home to the Yezidi people. The children of the Yezidi people have been standing beside their Armenian brothers at many fatal and heroic moments,” Ararat Mirzoyan, the Armenian Parliament Speaker, said. In this way, the temple denotes the shared ties between the Armenian and Yezidi ethnic groups. 

Amid the current violence and in the aftermath of centuries-old violence, this new temple demarcates the Yezidi’s place in the world, alluded Sashik Sultanyan, an activist at the Yezedi Center for Human Rights. The temple helps maintain a strong sense of Yezidi identity in Armenia, as the minority group has long held an imperfect relationship with the government, despite their shared history. The temple also functions as a reminder of the current urgent status of the Yezidi: in addition to experiencing extreme violence at the hands of ISIS, the Yezidi ethnic group is declining in population. 

“This temple is important for us because our community is facing extinction. Our community is displaced around the world, and we need temples in each place for our children to keep their culture and identity,”said Ahmed Burjus, who works for Yazda, a Yezedi human rights organization.