E.S., church worker, Vank Orthodox Church, est. 1604 CE., the focal point of the Armenian community in Isfahan, Iran.

“Foreigners come here a lot and they are usually shocked that here in Iran, they would find a 400-year-old Christian church and in such good shape too.

“All the paintings are original. They have not been repaired.

“The architect was good; the painters were good; the paints they used were good quality; and they’ve done a good job maintaining the church.

“Shah Abbas brought the Armenians here because he saw that they were good businessmen and wanted Iranians benefit from their culture.

Do you see yourself as primarily Iranian or Armenian?

“We are Armenians living here. Iran is just a name where many nationalities live together. The name Iran isn’t even more than 70 years old. Have you ever heard of the tribe of Iran? No. But you’ve heard of Turkemans, Turks, Azaris, Armenians, Bakhtiaris, Baluches, and the list goes on. We are all different nationalities living together in a place that happens to be called Iran.

“USSR also wanted to make one people out of many different and couldn’t do it.

“The government of Iran pays to help maintain the churches here. In Turkey it’s the opposite; they try to bring us down.

“Now you see what a strange world we live in. Iranians are called terrorists yet Turkey, which still denies the massacre of Armenians, is being allowed to join the European Union. With what civilization are they going to join Europe? It would be like pouring water into wine.

“We’ve heard that in the West there’s publicity that coming to Iran is not safe. But when they come here, they wonder what was all the safety talk about. They are treated like heroes here.

“It’s all politics. Nothing makes sense. And somehow, after all this publicity, after all this talk about fighting terror, they still can’t find this one man called bin Laden.