Epress.am News from Armenia
Preservationists say it would be a Whopper of a mistake for a Haverhill congregation to sell its 163-year-old church to a developer who wants to tear it down and build a Burger King, reports Boston.com, citing the Eagle Tribune.
Christian Miller, a member of the city’s historical commission, says the plan to build the restaurant on the site of the St. Gregory The Illuminator Armenian Apostolic Church is “utterly ridiculous.”
The commission says town meetings have been held in the building and tearing it down would change the character of downtown.
Church officials say the old building needs $1.5 million in repairs and they need to sell it in order to complete construction of their new church, the Armenian Apostolic Church at Hye Pointe.
“We love our religion, we love our history, and it feels like an intrusion for someone to say we can’t do this,” Scott Sahagian, chair of the parish council for the Church at Hye Pointe, said of the proposal to sell the church across from City Hall.
“If we can’t sell the church because of a historical commission ruling, our options would include not to build in Haverhill and to find a community that is more accepting of us,” he said.
Sahagian said attempts to block the sale would, to him, amount to “religious and ethnic” persecution.