What are the Armenians (self-name Haj) like in demographic and religious terms?
Even despite the Armenian Genocide, Armenians are one of the largest peoples in the Middle East. The homeland of the Armenians is the Armenian Highlands and adjacent areas with a total area of about 800,000 sq. km. After the Genocide, Armenians are represented as a majority in an area of 35,000 sq. km, of which the Republic of Armenia constitutes only 30,000 sq. km.
– There are approximately 12 million believers in the world (about 60,000 or 0.5% of this number are not ethnically Armenians) from this number of the Armenian Apostolic Holy Orthodox Church – the first Christian church on earth.
– About a million believers of the Armenian Catholic Church, which has its own special status in relations with the Roman Catholic Church and is headed by the Catholicos Patriarch.
About half a million Armenians belong to the Protestant denomination of the Armenian Evangelical Union.
Also, up to half a million Armenians are believers of various Orthodox in the Greek sense of the word and Protestant denominations.
Together, up to 7 million Islamized Armenians live in the territory of modern Turkey and Syria. Collectively, only 2% of this number are either Armenian-speaking or crypto-Christian and about 10% Alevi.
There are also more than a dozen peoples of Armenian origin living in the world – Alawites, Pomaks, Gorantsis, Torbeshis, etc.
As a result, we can talk about 14 million Christian Armenians, 7 million Islamized Armenians, 12 million peoples of Armenian origin, as well as many historical and geographical territories around the world where the population has full or partial Armenian origin. With these safety nets, it is necessary to take into account that in the period from 1882 to 1923, every 2 Armenians out of three Armenian Christians living in the world at that time were killed.
