308
CAIRO TO DAMASCUS
artisan, the agnostic; all these had gathered—3,800 souls—
within the inclosure of the monastery, under the protection
of the Mother Church. It was always thus in Armenian history. When split by partisanship within, or endangered by
enemies outside, the Church assumed charge of her flock in its
hour of need, brought them through safely, then released them
until the next crisis.
This monastery, this Vank, was medieval in structure, but
not in spirit. This "religious city" inside the Old City walls
was surrounded by its own ramparts, ten or more feet thick
at their base; its fortresslike homes, built of enduring stone,
had tiny windows cross-barred with inch-thick iron grillwork.
No one could hurdle walls thirty to fifty feet high. The only
entrance—and exit—was through one historic door, set in
massive hinges, locked and unlocked with a black iron key
eight inches long and kept always by the Patriarch. The door
itself was of solid iron many inches thick, so that rifle bullets
bounced off like ping-pong balls. I could understand why the
Arab hoodlums had been unable to gain entrance. Immediately upon entering a dark, cavernous courtyard, one read a
plaque in Arabic and in Armenian denouncing as "damned
and a son of the damned, and upon him fall the damnation
of God, the All High" anyone who sought to harm the sanctuary.
THE MAJOR AND THE PATRIARCH
THE Arab gangs were no longer a threat because a section of
the Vank compound—the school—was now occupied by the
Arab Legion which had made it their headquarters. After a
few words, I asked the Patriarch about the Legion.
"I have no quarrel with it," he told me. "It arrived just in
time. I could no longer hold off the Arab irregulars who looted
the Armenian homes outside the Vank, and wanted to do the