This loooong post is the paper I gave at the recent Mormon History Association. It is meant to be heard, not read, so there are far more ellipses than I would normally use in a written text; please trust me that the omitted phrases were left out to make the text easier to grasp on first hearing, and the meaning of the quotations has not been grossly distorted.

In mid-April, 1909, Elder David Stevenson, a Latter-day Saint missionary serving in Syria, wrote to his mission president to report his planned movements among the small branches of the Church in that part of the Ottoman Empire. Except for a little bad weather, he reported, all was well. He was a little homesick, he said, “not to go home, but to get back South again” to the cities of Aintab and Aleppo, where most of the members of the Church living in the Turkish Mission were located.

And then he added this casual postscript to the bottom of his letter: “P.S. We heard this morning that there is a war … So long until we meet.”

The war that Elder Stevenson referred to had broken out that very morning, one of a series of revolutions and counter-revelations in the last years of the crumbling Ottoman Empire. This counter-revolution quickly spilled over into violence against Christians, particularly Armenians, who occupied large areas of eastern Turkey and northern Syria. On the day that Elder Stevenson wrote his letter, Turkish forces launched a ten-day attack on the Armenian neighborhood of Adana, killing an estimated 15- to 30,000 Armenian civilians.

The Church had no members in Adana, and no Latter-day Saint lives were lost in the opening days of that counter-revolution. But the attack on Adana noted in Elder Stevenson’s letter was one action in an escalating series of bloody attacks on Christians in that part of the world. Between 1909 and 1921, Latter-day Saint converts would be murdered, widowed, raped and orphaned. Branches that were just beginning to put down strong roots and nurture a second generation of Latter-day Saints in the region would be destroyed, their members either killed or scattered to the wind. The few members who survived would cling to each other, reorganize under priesthood authority, form Relief Societies to care for each other, and plead with leaders in Salt Lake to send them a shepherd to guide their ravaged flock to safety.

It surprises many modern-day Mormons to hear that the Church once had an active missionary presence in Turkey, Syria, and other parts of the Middle East. The name “Aleppo,” if it is known at all the United States, brings to mind some of the fiercest fighting in the current Syrian civil war – not the thriving branch of Latter-day Saints of more than a century ago.

The first Latter-day Saint missionary in the region was Swiss-born Jacob Spori (a name that should be familiar to anyone with a connection to BYU-Idaho), who arrived in Constantinople late in 1884. He was followed by a handful of other missionaries who, finding a lack of response among the Muslim Turks, moved out from Constantinople into the inland provinces of the Ottoman Empire, baptizing a few here and there, in present-day Greece, Lebanon, Israel, Syria, and Turkey. These newly baptized Latter-day Saints were too widely scattered to be organized into branches or to be visited regularly by the few elders assigned to the mission. Few records were kept – notes jotted in missionary diaries and letters home, by men who sometimes failed to record even the names of those baptized, tell us what little we know of the earliest days of the Turkish Mission.

The Turkish Mission was closed briefly in 1896 due to violence within the Ottoman Empire. When it opened again a year later, the Mission operated under somewhat modernized practices being adopted throughout the Church: Rather than itinerant missionaries remaining constantly on the move, baptizing here and there and moving on to leave their converts behind, elders worked to establish branches where converts could gather for strength and ongoing participation in the Church. The tiny handful of missionaries – fluctuating between three and eight – still traveled in an endless circuit from city to city, but they either rented small buildings for branch headquarters or established regular meeting places in the homes of Saints in several cities of northern Syria and in Haifa, where a handful of German-speaking converts met.

If we had known in 1908 what was about to break over the heads of the Armenian Saints, I like to think we would have done something to save lives. But just as Americans did little to save Jewish lives in the early days of the Holocaust, Church leaders seemed oblivious to signs of the imminent genocide. There were missed opportunities that could have saved the lives of at least a few of the endangered Saints. In the summer of 1908, shortly after the Adana massacre, President Joseph W. Booth, who devoted much of his adult life to missionary work with the Armenians, escorted some 25 Armenian Saints out of Turkey and as far as Liverpool, England. For reasons I have not yet been able to pin down, Booth thought he had instructions from Salt Lake to take his refugees to England, where the Church would pay their fares the rest of the way to Utah. It was a poorly planned exodus, with small parties of Saints strung out across Europe, hurrying to catch up to Booth in Liverpool. But Charles W. Penrose, president of the European Mission in Liverpool, knew nothing of the emigrants until they showed up literally on his doorstep. He had made no preparations to receive them, although he opened the basement of the mission headquarters to house them, and he provided food during the several weeks it took to sort out the confusion. He did not believe that the Armenians would be permitted to enter the United States, given prevailing sentiments against what he called “Asiatics”; even if he had thought they would be received in New York, he did not have the funds on hand to purchase their transatlantic tickets. When Booth left Liverpool to round up his stragglers on the continent, Penrose could not even communicate with the Saints camped out in his basement. He eventually found passage for a handful of the Armenians to Tampico, Mexico; they arrived there safely and eventually made their way overland to Utah. All the rest were sent back to Turkey, to face whatever lay before them there.

Latter-day Saints in the Turkish Mission lived in a perpetual state of anxiety as the months passed. On New Year’s Day, 1909, Elder Burton Newman reported to President Booth of another uprising by Turkish revolutionaries, this time in Marash where Newman was working with a Latter-day Saint branch:

Every sound was listened to …expecting every moment to hear of the Turks having commenced another massacre … Every tale was repeated and the old scenes of the massacre related and talked over … the Armenians [vowed] that they would not stand around and let the Turks mow them down as they did before, but most of them were too frightened to collect their minds to act, I believe. Up until now no harm has been done in the actual killing line.

Later in January, Elder Newman reported:

There was an accident in the [marketplace] last Friday which resulted in the death of a young man. Some fellows were exam[in]ing a revolver and it went off unexpectedly. Another man or two have had narrow escapes. All seem crazed for firearms and are examining guns that they know nothing about.

In May, 1909, aware of the increasing peril faced by his flock, President Booth made another impractical proposal to the First Presidency. Perhaps the Church could hire one of the Armenian Saints, a doctor, to travel among the branches in Syria, treating the Saints for trachoma, the eye disease so prevalent in that part of the world that had already caused the United States to reject some of the Armenians who had tried to emigrate. With their eyes free from disease, perhaps the prejudice at New York would be alleviated … perhaps the Church could pay to emigrate the Saints, knowing that their investment would not be lost at the Ellis Island inspection station …

In July, 1909, the First Presidency wrote to President Booth in Aleppo. Acknowledging his May letter, they made no reference to his dream of “pick[ing] up our 200 saints and get[ting] them out of Turkey while there is permission to go.” Instead, they fixed upon his suggestion to “close up this mission till the people will wake up to the sound of the gospel.” They wrote:

We ha[ve] in mind the great length of time you and Sister Booth have been laboring among the Armenian people … especially did we consider the indifference existing among the Armenian people generally to the gospel message … After considering all these things, it appeared clear to our minds that there was but one thing to do, and that was to honorably release you and Sister Booth to return home with our blessing and very best wishes. …

In taking this action we fully understand the result will be to cease all active missionary work in the Turkish Mission for the present … But in doing this it was understood … that our native elders will not cease their endeavors among their own people, besides getting along as best they can among themselves.

The First Presidency instructed Booth to “set in order the different Branches of the Mission,” putting the most qualified native men in charge. Booth was to release the American elders, and return directly to the United States by way of New York City, bringing the mission records with him.

We sincerely hope that you … the missionary elders, and the native saints … will accept [this action] … as the very best thing that can be done for all concerned under the circumstances now prevailing, leaving the results where they belong, in the hands of the Lord … We wish you to say to our Armenian brethren and sisters that we will neither forsake nor forget them, but … do all we … can to prevail upon their own … people in Zion to help them to gather to Zion … As soon as the Armenian people generally shall manifest a desire to receive the gospel message, we shall do all we can … to again send elders to minister among them.

In obedience to this summons, and without means or time to do anything else, Booth delegated local men to look after the branches, and he and his few elders closed the mission and left for Utah in September, 1909. With the cooperation of Anthon H. Lund, a member of the First Presidency who had visited the Turkish Mission ten years earlier and ever afterward held an affection for the Saints there, and with the assistance of Ferdinand F. Hintze, another powerful missionary and advocate for the Armenian Saints, Booth worked tirelessly over the next few years, trying to raise funds for the emigration of Armenian Saints.

The few Armenians already in Utah were themselves struggling. “These Saints are good people,” wrote Hintze, “but cannot compete with Americans in the labor market, owing to lack of language and general understanding of our more progressive ways of industry. Yet they are saints and of the house of Israel and need our sympathy and careful consideration.” I am unaware of any Armenian Saints who were enabled to leave Turkey through the efforts of those already transplanted to Utah.

Some of the Saints left behind in Turkey, divining what was to come, and in possession of a few more assets than others, planned their own escape from the danger zone. Sarkis and Gohar Davidian of Aleppo had joined the Church in about 1890, and had remained faithful during the comings and goings of the missionaries. It wasn’t easy – Sarkis was imprisoned for several months for harboring missionaries at a time when the Church was enduring a period of severe disfavor. Gohar had taken missionaries into her home and nursed them through bouts of smallpox. Their three children, although not members of the Church themselves, were sympathetic – daughter Noritsa, unusually well educated for a young woman in that time and place, produced a translation of the Book of Mormon into Armenian.

The Davidian family made plans for their young adult children to emigrate to the United States in June, 1909, two months after the slaughter in Adana. In September, when the last of the missionaries left, Sarkis was left to preside over the Aleppo branch.

The three Davidian children emigrated to New York City and found work, desperately trying to raise the money to bring their parents to safety. They made contact with the Latter-day Saint branch in Manhattan, who helped the Davidian children with a significant donation of their own. The Davidians sent money for their parents to emigrate in July, 1910. The elderly couple sailed aboard a freighter without real passenger accommodations; Gohar became seriously ill during the crossing.

Unlike Latter-day Saint immigrants from European countries, whose travel was coordinated through the European Mission, the Davidians were alone – no missionaries, no fellow Saints, no emigration agent. There was no one to help them when the ship arrived at New York two days before schedule – nobody to welcome them, or to explain to immigration officials that they had grown children who would support them. Sarkis and Gohar were denied entry into the United States and were put back aboard the freighter to be returned to Turkey.

In a scene that plays in my mind like a movie, Eastern States Mission President Ben E. Rich learned of the ship’s early arrival. Collecting the Davidian children, he raced to the pier, arriving at the last possible moment to rescue Sarkis and Gohar from deportation. Members of the New York branch assisted the Davidian children in caring for their parents – safe from the genocide that engulfed the friends and fellow Saints they had left behind.

And those Saints left behind continued to plead with the Church for rescue, or at least for a sign that they had not been forgotten. As the years passed, and as waves of revolution continued to roll over Turkey, the Saints wrote letters to President Booth in Alpine, Utah, some of which he translated and carried to Church leaders in Salt Lake City.

Dear Brethren [wrote one group, in 1911] – Our lives are not safe – no money – no work – everything in bad condition – some of the Armenian Saints have been compelled to join the Turkish Army. … now Dear Brethren, we do not like to trouble you much but we will write a few words more. … If our lives are not precious in your sight, be merciful to us for the sake of our little children, help them that they may have something to look forward to in the future. We ask, we implore of you that we may be gathered from Babylon to Zion – that we may be able to work for our dead and so receive the promised blessings … our spirits and bodies are waiting for redemption.

Another letter, written from Aintab in 1912, seems even more desperate:

To our Dear President and Prophet and Counselors, and the Twelve Apostles in Christ Jesus, Greetings …

We as a Branch of the Church of 70 souls are here in the world like sheep without a shepherd, torn by wolves and so distressed that we are compelled to write you again … Our hope is in the salvation of our selves and our forefathers thru the gospel. … Our desires are not realized. Our leaders have left us … Our strength is gone. …

What shall we say to our weaker saints here to comfort them in their hour of trouble? Our desires to reach Zion seem to be in vain

If you have forsaken us for sure, do write us and let us know and we will remain hopeless, and our children’s welfare be upon your heads.

We implore you to deliver us from this condition or to send us a good missionary to be with us and assist us in our distress. Your Brethren in the gospel … ((I have positive evidence that the three signers of this letter – Kavork Ozunian, Artine Ozunian, and Avides Kulucksinian – perished in the genocide.))

With the outbreak of World War I involving Turkey as heavily as the nations of Western Europe, the Saints in the old Turkish Mission were unable to communicate further. Beginning in 1915, the Armenians’ trouble began in earnest – trouble so horrific and widespread that a new word had to be coined to give it a name: Genocide, “the organized killing of a people for the express purpose of putting an end to their collective existence.” The Armenian population of Turkey was forcibly removed to the deserts of Syria, and those already in Syria, like the approximately 200 Latter-day Saints, were driven further. No one knows how many civilian lives were lost in all during the mass deportation – estimates range from one to two million, most of whom were driven into the desert to die of thirst and starvation.

Nor do we know how many Latter-day Saint Armenians perished in that systematic mass murder. If he had had the funds to bring them out of Turkey in 1909, President Booth identified 200 Latter-day Saints whom he considered worthy of such aid. Perhaps 80 were identified in 1922 when Booth returned to open the Armenian Mission. Perhaps some of the missing Saints were still living, but so scattered they could not be found. Perhaps some had died of causes not connected to mass murder. But certainly many of the missing were victims of the genocide – including the entire branch presidency of the Aintab branch.

We have few personal stories of the sufferings of Latter-day Saints during the years of the genocide, for obvious reasons: The dead cannot speak for themselves; the stories of the living were, for the most part, obscured by language and now by time. Booth did preserve a few names and stories he heard from survivors.

Yeranic Gedikian had been raised as a Latter-day Saint from early childhood. Booth called her “the black-eyed, four-year-old pride of the Aintab Branch.” In 1914, at age 16, Yeranic married; in the following year, she and her husband, along with many hundreds of others, were marched out of Aintab and east to the Euphrates River, then driven down the river toward Baghdad, along the same route followed 2500 years earlier as the Children of Israel were taken into captivity. An estimated 150,000 Armenians reached the concentration camps at Deir ez-Zor in 1915 and ’16, Yeranic and her husband among them. One respected human rights authority describes Deir ez-Zor as “a vast and horrific open-air concentration camp,” where prisoners “were forbidden in almost all cases food and water.” One day in that camp, hundreds of the Armenian men, Yeranic’s husband among them, were driven over the nearby hills and out of sight of the camp, where they were shot. Now a young widow, Yeranic began three years of slavery and near-starvation, until early one morning she found an opportunity to escape, fleeing into the desert where, ironically, she was rescued by Turkish soldiers and helped to return to Aintab. Her entire family, virtually everyone she had ever known, had vanished. Finally she located one brother, and eventually learned that two other brothers had survived. Yeranic made contact with other surviving Latter-day Saints being gathered by Moses Hindoian, who had been pressed into service in the Turkish army, but who had been captured by the British. He spent a year in a prisoner of war camp in Egypt, where he had preached the gospel to fellow prisoners whenever the opportunity arose.

Yeranic was almost certainly among those Latter-day Saint women in Aintab who, in 1920, sent a letter which was read in the November meeting of the Relief Society General Board, whose minutes read:

A letter was read from the Relief Society of Aintab, Syria, Turkey Relief Society, to President Emmeline B. Wells, in which the living conditions in Armenia were briefly told. Hunger, nakedness and want are seen on every hand. Appreciation for the Gospel with all its blessings was expressed, and also the thought that though this society is so far away, they are connected by spiritual ties with the other organization in Utah … The letter was signed by 24 women of the Relief Society, four of whom are not members of the Church, but are married to Mormon men.

The Relief Society’s initial response to this account of “hunger, nakedness and want” seems singularly unhelpful.

It was moved … that a letter of sympathy be written to the women of this organization … also, that the General Board, collectively and individually, will remember these women in their prayers … for their ultimate delivery from their present sad condition … The motion was seconded and carried.

But concern in Utah did take a more practical turn. The Utah Committee for Armenian and Syrian Relief, headed by George Albert Smith and with Heber J. Grant among other prominent Mormon names on its executive board, began to raise money. “We cannot let them die while we live in plenty – a few dollars will save many lives, and render a new hope to these people in the Motherland of Christianity.” A special fast day was held, with contributions earmarked for the Armenian Saints. Heber J. Grant called on Joseph W. Booth to return to the Middle East, to what was rechristened as the Armenian Mission. The Relief Societies of Alpine, Utah – Booth’s home – took the initiative in gathering many hundreds of pounds of clothing for Booth to deliver to Saints in need.

The story of Booth’s return to Aintab, and his miraculous success in leading 53 Latter-day Saints from Aintab to Aleppo on the eve of another threatened massacre, has been beautifully told in a display on the website history.lds.org – in the interest of time, I refer you there for an illustrated account of that exodus and the reorganization of the Armenian Mission in the following years.

Next year marks the beginning of the hundredth anniversary of the Armenian Genocide. The current crisis in Syria may prevent commemoration in the towns from which the victims were driven, or the killing fields where they vanished. Just as there are Holocaust deniers who insist that the crimes of Hitler and his Nazis never happened, there are Genocide deniers who claim that only a negligible number of Armenian guerrillas died in wartime reprisals. I have reason to know that even Latter-day Saints within Turkey take the position that no atrocities occurred, and refuse to acknowledge that Latter-day Saint civilians – including women and children – died at the hands of Turks.

But the Armenian community, dispersed by war throughout the world, including sizable populations in California and Utah, has not forgotten. Entirely apart from the questions raised by politics, the Latter-day Saint historical community, at least, has an obligation to remember our fellow Saints who were lost, their names largely forgotten and their graves unmarked.