In 2015, a group of grateful admirers of the legendary Maria Jacobsen launched an ad hoc Board under the name of “Friends of Maria Jacobsen” for the sole purpose of paying a special tribute posthumously by organizing two special events in honor of the extraordinary humanitarian/missionary whose entire adult life was dedicated to serving Armenian orphaned children both in Western Armenia and Lebanon.

The Diocesan Vicar General the Very Rev. Fr. Pakrad Dz. V. Berjekian attended the first event which was held on October 21, 2016 at the Glendale Presbyterian Church and delivered the invocation. Sir Vartan Melkonian, one of the orphans of the Birds’ Nest in Jbeil (Byblos) Lebanon, and now the distinguished conductor of UK’s Royal Philharmonic Orchestra paid a special tribute to his beloved “Mama” as he conducted a local orchestra composed of professional musicians. The program included famous works by prominent composers as well as a special composition by Maestro dedicated to Maria Jacobsen.

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Maria Jacobsen (1882-1960) was a Danish missionary and a key witness to the Armenian Genocide. For her humanitarian efforts, she is known as “Mayrik” (Armenian mother) or “Mama”, for having saved many Armenians during the Genocide. When Jacobsen arrived in Kharpert in 1907, she immediately started working at the American hospital located in the area. In her “Diaries of a Danish Missionary: Harpoot, 1907-1919,” she stated that the deportation of Armenians on June 21, 1915 pursued only one purpose: The extermination of the Armenian people. Serving as part of the Danish missionary, Jacobsen took thousands of children under her care and hid them from the Turks.

After World War I, Jacobsen left the Ottoman Empire after contracting typhus from the orphans. After going to her native Denmark, she visited the United States, where she gave a series of lectures and speeches on the plight of the Armenian people and the massacres to which they have been subject. In the seven months that she spent in the United States, she managed to raise money for the Armenian orphans. After being prohibited from entrering Turkey, she subsequently went to Beirut, Lebanon where she continued to care for the orphans. In 1922, she established an orphanage in Zouk Michael which sheltered 218 orphans and in 1928 she founded the Birds’ Nest in Jbeil.

Maria Jacobsen was fluent in Armenian and read the Bible to the orphans in Armenian. She passed away on April 6, 1960 and is buried in the courtyard of Birds’ Nest as desired in her will.