How some Armenians are reclaiming their Christian faith

Armenians in Turkey, who for a century have been forced to conceal their identities, are trying to return to their roots.
Nezahat Eleftos (R) chats with her daughter Leyla at her home in Diyarbakir, in the Kurdish-dominated southeastern Turkey, April 20, 2015. For nearly four decades, Eleftos tried to guard her grandmother Zarife's secret that she too had been born a Christian Armenian - and not a Muslim Kurd like all her neighbors in Onbasilar, a village set in the rocky hills of Turkey's Diyarbakir province. A century after the killing of Zarife's brothers and hundreds of thousands of other Armenians in Ottoman Turkish lands
Nezahat Eleftos (R) chats with her daughter Leyla at her home in Diyarbakir, in the Kurdish-dominated southeastern Turkey, April 20, 2015. For nearly four decades, Eleftos tried to guard her grandmother Zarife's secret that she too had been born a Christian Armenian, not a Muslim Kurd like all her neighbors. - REUTERS/Sertac Kayar
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Sibel Hurtas
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Armenians in Turkey who opted to live as Muslims to avoid mistreatment are recovering their true identities in collective baptisms. The latest such baptism came in May when 12 Armenians from Dersim (Tunceli) recovered their identities.

The saga of Armenians who were compelled to live as Muslims goes back to 1915 massacres. Armenian children were adopted by Muslim families, women married Muslim men and some families converted to Islam to save their lives.

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