The ‘last’ among the world’s ‘first’ Christians

David Judson

12/9/2011

NIJ, Azerbaijan – Newspapermen like myself often seek to understand the history of Azeris in this country, the Armenians next door, Turkey’s Kurds, Iran’s Ba’hai or Egypt’s Copts. But what do we know of Iraq’s 60,000 Shaleks, Iran’s 5,000 remaining Mandeans or the 50,000 Mhallami of Turkey?

Not much. Which was the nature of the conversation I had here last week in this village near Azerbajian’s ancient capital with Vidadi Mahmadov, the local headman and caretaker of the informally named “St. Eliseus” church. It is the last operating church in the world of the “Udin,” or “Udis” as they call themselves, who entirely comprise this and two nearby villages. Their numbers of 6,000 in Azerbaijan and no more than 10,000 worldwide are, in Mahmadov’s words, “the last of the world’s first Christians.”

Neither Mahmadov or his church get many visitors and it was only an afterthought on the part of my traveling companian here that took me off the main road to northern Gabala 40 kilometers from here to learn what we could about this struggling community and its newly restored church. We spoke in Azeri Turkish, but Mahmadov’s native tongue is Udi, a language spoken by all here – a Caucasian language related to the slightly better known Lezgic.

“But maybe its just as well,” the 68-year-old Mahmadov told me as we sat in the shade of a giant plane tree older than the 17th Century church itself. “We don’t need much or ask for much.”

His claim to be among the last of the world’s first Christians will surely be disputed by some and it’s not my business to adjudicate. It does, though, deserve listening.

The Udins were one of 26 tribes that made up the ancient state of Albania (no relation to the current country of that name), the predecessor of today’s Azerbaijan. In about 300 A.D., according to Mahmadov, that tribal confederation became the first state to formally embrace Christianity at the urging of St. Eliseus himself. In 301, Christianity was also embraced by the nearby Armenian state, which more conventionally is given the title of “first.”

Only the Udins remain of those original 26 tribes. After the region was conquered by Russia, Czar Nicholas I formally abolished the Alban Church and absorbed it into the Armenian Orthodox Church. Only “St. Eliseus” survived as a nominally “Alban” church by virtue of its isolation. When Azerbaijan’s brief independence from the Russians ended in invasion by the Soviet Union in 1920, Nij’s church was made a hazelnut warehouse.

Only after Azerbaijan regained its independence in 1991 were the Udin allowed to again formally teach their language, developing with state help a curriculum now used in the region’s three primary schools. Seven years ago, the locals regained their church, restoring it with funds from a Baku foundation. The altar vestments the villagers have made themselves.

Mahmadov walked me to a crypt outside the entryway when I asked when his congregation might get a priest.

“This is our priest,” he said, pointing downward. Of course, for there is no Alban Church to reconscretate the building, no Alban Bishop to assign a cleric.

“We come here to pray each Sunday,” he said. “That’s more than any of us ever had before.”

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