Over the past two years, Azerbaijan has coordinated its efforts to "restore" the so-called Albanian Church. The campaign really took off in 2020, after parts of Artsakh were occupied, when Baku began arranging regular pilgrimages by members of the country’s Udi community to Armenian holy sites—rebranding those shrines as Albanian-Udi sanctuaries and spiritual centers. The first monument in their sights was Dadivank.

Since 2020, the head of the Udi community, Robert Mobili, along with other representatives, has given interview after interview attacking the Armenian Apostolic Church. Their aim is to convince audiences that the Albanian Church was deliberately abolished at the Armenian Church’s insistence and that, in the nineteenth century, the Armenians subsequently “took over" Albanian-Udi shrines in Karabakh. They also claim that Armenian clergy destroyed the Albanian Church's archival records back in the nineteenth century—supposedly with the blessing of the Russian imperial authorities. Azerbaijani historians dutifully provide commentary to bolster these allegations.

In tandem, theoretical "foundations" are being drafted—touching on church architecture and the iconography of the cross—to lend academic weight to the restoration story. Those papers, too, are being prepared by Robert Mobili with overt state backing. The propaganda targets not only the Armenian cultural heritage of occupied Artsakh, but also that of Syunik. Monasteries such as Gandzasar, Amaras, Dadivank, and Tsitsernavank have all come under rhetorical fire.

Baku is now trying to enlist foreign outlets—especially media linked to official church structures—to amplify its message. One such outlet is L'Osservatore Romano. In its recent article—even as it repeats all the familiar Azerbaijani talking points—the paper floats a new thesis: that Dadivank is "the Vatican" of the Albanian-Udi Church, its very foundation. As purported proof of its supreme sanctity, the article asserts that the relics of Saint Thaddeus are buried there. In other words, Azerbaijan is seeking not only historical but confessional legitimacy for its project, contending that the church in question was founded by Saint Thaddeus himself.

It is no coincidence that the Azerbaijani side advances the Albanian-Udi Church narrative not by drawing on sources from historical Caucasian Albania but chiefly by staking a claim to the Armenian cultural heritage of Artsakh.