to stop its destruction. He explained the situation to Alain Bosquet as "I was in a ship from Tatvan to Van. I met with a military officer Dr. Cavit Bey on board. I told him, in this city there is a church descended from Armenians. It is a masterpiece. These days, they are demolishing this church. I will take you there tomorrow. This church is a monument of Anatolia. Can you help me to stop the destruction? The next day we went there with the military officer. They have already demolished the small chapel next to the church. The military officer became angry and told the workers, "I am ordering you to stop working. I will meet with governor. There will be no movement until I return to the island again". The workers immediately stopped the demolition. We arrived at Van city center. I contacted the newspaper Cumhuriyet. They informed the Ministry of Education about the demolition. Two days later, Minister Avni Başman telegraphed the Van governor and ordered to stop the demolition permanently. June 25, 1951, the day when the order came, is the liberation day of the church." Restoration Between May 2005 and October 2006, the church underwent a controversial restoration program. The restoration had a stated budget of 2 million Turkish Lira (approximately 1.4 million USD) and was financed by the Turkish Ministry of Culture. It officially re-opened as a museum on 29 March 2007 in a ceremony attended by the Turkish Minister of Culture, government officials, ambassadors of several countries, Patriarch Mesrob II (spiritual leader of the Armenian Orthodox community of Turkey), a delegation from Armenia headed by the Deputy to the Armenian Minister of Culture, and a large group of invited journalists from many news organizations around the world. Özdemir Çakacak, the Governor of Van, described the refurbishing of the church as "a show of Turkey's respect for history and culture". A Turkish state department museum official added, "We could not have ignored the artifacts of our Armenian citizens, and we did not." Signs heralding the church reopening declared "Tarihe saygı, kültüre saygı" ("Respect the history, respect the culture"). According to Maximilian Hartmuth, an academician at Sabancı University, "the church was turned into a museum rather than re-opened as a place of worship following the restoration was, for example, claimed to be a wedge separating the monument from Turkey’s Armenian community. The critics, writing for