Mor-Wave concert in Iyık Janyl cancelled after parish protests

IYIK JANYL — A Mor-Wave concert planned for Saturday in Iyık Janyl has been cancelled after protests by parishioners, the organizers said yesterday. It would have been the first event of its kind in the holy city.

The concert, which was to bring three electronic acts from Talas to a hall near the bus station, had been advertised with posters showing a figure in a bull mask. Last Sunday a group of parishioners gathered outside the hall after the morning liturgy, and a petition calling for the event to be stopped was circulated in several parishes. Church tradition identifies Morkhan, the bull-headed god of pre-Christian belief whose image is common in the genre, with Satan.

A spokesman for the archeparchy said the church had not asked the city to ban the concert, but that clergy had "a duty to say plainly that this imagery has no place in the city of St. Janyl". He noted that pilgrims begin to arrive in the city in August for the Feast of St. Janyl.

The organizers said they had cancelled to avoid confrontation and would refund tickets. "We never meant to insult anyone's faith," one of them said. "These are images from the epics our grandmothers knew." The city administration said it had received no application to stop the event.