The Alevis's Ambivalent Encounter With Modernity. Islam, Reform and Ethnopolitics In Turkey (19th-20th cc.) Hans-Lukas Kieser, University of Zurich (hans-lukas.kieser@unibas.ch Another important difference is the special symbiosis with the Christians, especially the Armenians, in Eastern Anatolia that led to more developed interreligious practices and even the fact that some Eastern Alevis got Armenian kirves (godparent of circumcision). We must also consider the fact that an important number of rural Armenian Christians, under grewing pressure from their Sunni neighbours and the state, looked for protection by Alevi tribes. They were absorbed by them in the second half of the 19th and the first quart of the 20th century. These Armenians became Alevis not through outright conversion, but through a gradual process of integration into existing rural communities.