Armenia and Karabakh

Armenia was the first country to adopt Christianity as its official religion in the early 4th century. Armenian Christians suffered greatly under the Ottoman Empire, with an estimated 1.5 million dying between 1915 and 1923. They were again persecuted under Soviet rule, and during this time only ⅓ of Armenians identified as Christian. Beginning in the Gorbachev era, however, baptism into the Armenian Apostolic Church became once again an important marker of national identity, and in 2015, 94.4% of the population was Christian. In Karabakh, a territory whose possession is disputed by Armenia and Azerbaijan, Armenian churches were disbanded in 1932 but allowed to reopen beginning in 1989.