Article
Change
Freedom of Belief
3 min read

A tale of two Septembers

The recent conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh is already a twice forgotten war. Forced to flee twice, Anush Petrosyan describes the experience.

Anush Petrosyan

Anush Petrosyan is a writer now based in Armenia. She is originally from Nagorno-Karabakh.

A sunset dramatically silhouette's a ruined tower and people at its base.
A September 2023 sunset over Stepanakert.

The ethnic cleansing of 100,000 Christian Armenians from Nagorno-Karabakh has left Armenians around the world questioning the world order that allows dictators to have their way without impunity.  

 Following Azerbaijan’s brutal war of September 2020, the people of Karabakh were subjected to a complete blockade of their region – an exclave of Armenia in Azerbaijan. In the small stretch of land where Armenians had fought for independence following the collapse of the Soviet Union, civilians were being kidnapped, the elderly were dying for lack of basic healthcare, and schools were closing due to no heating gas. To the outside world, Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev was speaking of peace and integration. Inside the region, experts were warning of genocide by starvation.  

In September 2023, Azerbaijan at last got what it wanted - the territory of Karabakh without Armenians. After an attack that left hundreds of people dead, Azerbaijani forces moved into the region as people began to flee to Armenia, forever leaving their homes and homeland.  

This is the story of Anush Petrosyan. A native of Shushi, Karabakh, which Azerbaijan took control of in 2020. Since then, Anush had been living in the Armenian-controlled Karabakh capital of Stepanakert, which she was forced to evacuate during the ethnic cleansing.  

In September 2020, I left my birthplace in Shushi, Artsakh (Nagorno Karabakh) with a strong conviction that I would be back soon. 

In September 2023, I left Stepanakert, my new hometown, with only the hope of staying alive. 

 

In September 2020, I had a father. He drove us to Yerevan in our own car. 

In September 2023, I no longer had a father… A kind person from Martakert, Artsakh, who I had not met before, agreed to evacuate my mother and me to Yerevan in his car. 

 

In September 2020, I left Shushi when there were still some people in the city. 

In September 2023, I was among the last to leave Stepanakert. The hotel where we had been living as refugees from Shushi for the last three years was empty. I had never seen the streets of Stepanakert look so desperate. There were stray dogs roaming, and those without cars and were waiting for public buses to come and evacuate them. 

 

In 2020, we left behind the harvest of my father's garden in Shushi, and an abundant life. 

In 2023, we left a few kilos of buckwheat, rice, and potatoes in our hotel room in Stepanakert. Food we had managed to get a hold of during a nearly year-long brutal blockade. 
 

In 2020, I left Shushi with dreams in my heart. I had not been broken yet, I had no personal loss, and I was confident I’d be back. 

In September 2023, I left Stepanakert with a sense of uncertainty about my life and my future. I had lost a homeland, my father, and I was lost in my own life. 

 

I have written much about Shushi since the September 2020 Artsakh War. I left a whole life and a garden of violets there. 

But I haven't written a single line about Stepanakert since the violence and ethnic cleansing of September 2023. Maybe one day I will write about this cozy city and its beautiful stadium where I would jog and regain a sense of peace. 

 

In September 2020, for the first time in my life, I felt how alone and powerless a person can be.  

In September 2023, for the second time in my life I felt how alone and powerless a person can be. 

 

In September 2020, I started to realize that in any hopeless situation a person should put their hope only in themselves and God. 

In September 2023, I became convinced that in any hopeless situation a person should put his hope only in themselves and God.  
 

I went through hell twice, or through different stages of hell.  It is difficult to say which hell was worse.... I am only afraid to imagine that there are people whose hell has been more hellish than mine. 

 

But in the midst of hell, I came across the most compassionate people, who made me feel God’s presence in this absurd world of ours. 

Stepanakert and Sushi

An avenue of colourful flats beside green trees.
Stepanakert before the exodus.
A hillside road blocked by stationary vehicles.
Cars evacuating from Karabakh to Armenia.
A view down a valley from a ridge.
Hunot Gorge State Reserve near Shushi, Nagorno-Karabakh.
Ruins covered by growing weeds.
War ruins and gardens in Shushi, Nagorno-Karabakh.

Voices of Artsakh is a new series developed in collaboration with The Armenia Project, an educational non-profit in Armenia, that features the stories of the refugees who were forced to flee Nagorno-Karabakh (also known as Artsakh). These personal essays will focus on their experiences, and life after Artsakh as they try to rebuild new homes following the ethnic cleansing from their historic lands.

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Article
Care
Change
Mental Health
4 min read

Social prescribing for whole person care

Responding to an anxiety epidemic, there’s a growth in social prescribing with a spiritual wellbeing element. Esther Platt explores how it's working out locally.

Esther Platt

Esther works as a Senior Consultant for the Good Faith Partnership. She sits in the secretariat for the ChurchWorks Commission.

Two people sit at a table with their hands resting on top of it. One speaks to the other
Photo by Christina @ wocintechchat.com on Unsplash

Since 2001, Mental Health Awareness Week has been marked once a year in May. This year, the theme was anxiety - an increasingly relevant topic in a country that has endured three years of world-changing crises and the soaring cost of living. Research from the Mental Health Foundation has found that 1 in 10 UK adults feel hopeless about financial circumstances and more than one-third feel anxious. 

For centuries, it has been recognised that spiritual well-being is closely tied to mental well-being. By spiritual wellbeing, I don’t mean organised religion. I mean our sense of relationship to a higher-power or reality beyond our own, and our sense of purpose and meaning in life, as Craig Ellison outlines it as in his paper Spiritual Well-Being: Conceptualization and Measurement. 

In Man’s Search for Meaning holocaust survivor Victor Frankl compellingly makes the case that in a world of suffering, our survival depends on our sense of purpose, meaning and hope. Frankl coined the term ‘the self-transcendence of human existence’ by which he explained that human beings look for meaning beyond themselves, either in a cause, a person to love, or a higher power.

With an increased understanding of the holistic nature of wellbeing, and the value of spirituality, a new way of looking at health is emerging. 

While modern psychologists are still building a clinical-grade evidence base on the value of spirituality, there is clear agreement that spiritual wellbeing is crucial for a good quality of life, especially for those who are facing adverse life events, as you can read on the US National Library of Medicine web site. Traditionally, health provision in the UK has focused exclusively on the physical, and more recently the mental. However, with an increased understanding of the holistic nature of wellbeing, and the value of spirituality, a new way of looking at health is emerging.  

Social prescribing is one way in which this is being done, and across the country. 

In social prescribing, local agencies such as charities, social care and health services refer people to a social prescribing link worker. Social prescribing link workers give people time, focusing on ‘what matters to me?’ to coproduce a simple personalised care and support plan. This involves ‘prescribing’ individuals to local community groups such as walking clubs, art classes, gardening groups and many other activities. 

Churches are playing a crucial role making social prescribing happen. St Mary’s Church in Andover, offer a wellbeing course to members of the community who have been directed to them through the local GP surgery.  

Members of Revival Fires Church in Dudley have been trained to offer Listening and Guidance support to those who are referred by a GP.  

Beyond social prescribing, St John’s Hoxton in London offer the Sanctuary Mental Health course to their community which gives people an opportunity to share their experiences and find solidarity in their struggles.  

Church provides a space where the breadth of our wellbeing, our desire for purpose, community and hope can be supported in a way that the NHS does not have capacity or experience to deliver. As the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, writes  

"The issue of mental health is one that requires a holistic approach on an individual basis, incorporating as appropriate psychiatric, medical and religious support’.  

Olivia Amartey, Executive Director for Elim, an international movement of Pentecostal churches adds,  

‘I am convinced that there is no other organisation on earth that cares for the whole person, as well as the church. Its engagement with the statutory authorities, focussed on individuals’ well-being, provides an invaluable opportunity for a synchronised partnership to the benefit of all our communities.’ 

Jesus told his followers, ‘I have come so that you can have life and have it to the full’. This is the hope that animates churches. Christians find meaning and purpose in the hope of life, peace and justice that Jesus gives. Church can be a space where the complexity of hurt and suffering is acknowledged, and where we can find solidarity and support in the presence of those who can help us find purpose and meaning.  

At ChurchWorks, a commission of leaders from the 15 biggest church denominations in the UK, we are excited by the prospect of more churches providing this space. On 18th May we held ChurchWorks for Wellbeing, in which we gathered over 300 church leaders to explore how the church can bring hope to our communities in this time. We shared stories of small and simple conversations, where offering a listening service, an art class or a food pantry enabled churches to give people in their community space to be, to grieve, to process and to grow. From the conference, it is our hope that we will see hundreds more churches start to engage in social prescribing and welcome their communities to access holistic wellbeing support.  

At a time when anxiety is rife, and it is so easy to feel despair and hopelessness, the church offers a vital resource to us: a place where our spiritual wellbeing can be nurtured, where we can find purpose, where we can find community, where we can find hope. 

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