sentences:  Serious damage to the church was caused by an arson attack on December 25, 1989, but it remained standing.Vazgen I, head of the Armenian Church, wrote to Yuri Khristoradnov, the chairman of the Soviet Council for Religious Affairs, in January 1990 that "extremist Azeri nationalists set fire to the Armenian Church in Baku on 25 December [1989], destroying valuable ecclesiastical books, holy paintings, and all ecclesiastical clothing.