On February 17, 2024 the Department of Armenian Studies at Pázmány Péter Catholic University had a special guest, the architect Ara Zarian, visiting from Italy. The Armenian Catholic Church in Budapest kindly hosted Mr. Zarian's meetings with students, professors and community. Mr. Zarian was born in Rome; he is the grandson of the major writer Gostan Zarian and son of architect Armen Zarian. In 1980, Ara Zarian graduated from Yerevan Polytechnic Institute. Since then he has been actively contributing to the restoration of numerous churches in Armenia. He has also authored and co-authored works dedicated to the history of Armenian architecture and church restoration.
/Karen Jallatyan, Ara Zarian, Bálint Kovács/
During his meeting with the Department of Armenian Studies, Mr. Zarian met with students, professors and community members, discussing his project of church mural restoration and preservation in Armenia. Mr. Zarian mentioned some of the challenges of restoring ancient frescos, especially after centuries of neglect or bad treatment, in part due to natural causes such as earthquakes, but also because of man-made, intentional or unintentional sabotage during Soviet rule and after. While people had good intentions at heart but lacked the knowledge of how, more importantly, they did not understand why to preserve church murals since Soviet Armenian scholars and the public in general questioned whether these murals are part of Armenian culture. Mr. Zarian expressed regret for the fact that for a long time there was no center specializing in mural restoration in Armenia and stresses the importance of having one. The meeting concluded with some of the Armenian Studies doctoral students introducing themselves and their topics of research and receiving insightful remarks regarding their projects.
Mr. Zarian visited Budapest as a curator of an exhibition dedicated to Armenian churches. The exhibition was shown at Pázmány Péter Catholic University and was seen by the presidents of Armenia and Hungary during their historic visit to the University.
From Movses Ayarian
