Delivering his address after the homily of Catholicos Karekin II, who presided over the liturgy, the Pope also asked the supreme leader of the Armenian Apostolic Church to bless him, the Catholic Church, and “this our path towards full unity”. Pope Francis is in Armenia for a three-day…
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(Tiziana Fabi/AFP pool photo via AP).
As he arrived in Armenia on June 24, the pope declared that the massacre of Armenians by Ottoman Turks a century ago was part of a planned “genocide” aimed at exterminating the Armenian people.
Pope Francis attended the June 26 divine liturgy of the Armenian Apostolic Church, after privately celebrating Mass in the morning.
During a prayer meeting with the Pope on Saturday night, patriarch, Catholicos Karekin II spoke about a need for justice regarding the 1915 killings and for Turkey the acknowledge it’s past.
The Pope will later bid farewell to Armenia, the first Christian nation and will leave for Vatican after a farewell ceremony at Zvartnots Airport.
The Vatican rejected the allegations and said the pontiff was trying to build bridges not walls and had nothing against Turkey.
“He did not speak against the Turkish people”.
When Francis first used the term “genocide” in 2015, on the centenary of the 1915-1917 killings that Armenians say wiped out some 1.5 million of their people, Ankara angrily recalled its envoy from the Holy See for almost a year.
The pope on Saturday visited the Armenian genocide memorial in Yerevan but sought to strike a conciliatory tone during evening prayers.
“The secularization of large sectors of society, its alienation from the spiritual and divine, leads inevitably to a desacralized and materialistic vision of man and the human family”, the June 26 declaration said. He called for “a unity that must not be the submission of one to the other, or assimilation, but rather the acceptance of all the gifts that God has given to each”.
Armenia’s church split from Rome in the fifth century following a religious dispute.
The monastery holds special significance for followers of both Catholicism and Armenian Orthodoxy as Gregory the Illuminator – a religious leader and patron saint of the Armenian Apostolic Church, credited with having converted the Armenians to Christianity in 301 AD – was imprisoned at the site of the monastery for 14 years.
YEREVAN, Armenia (AP) – The Vatican on Sunday strongly dismissed Turkish claims that Pope Francis has adopted a “Crusades” mentality by recognizing the Ottoman-era genocide of Armenians, insisting that Francis’s three-day visit to the Orthodox country was one of peace and reconciliation. He and Karekin released two white doves in a message of peace toward Turkey. The monastery lies in the shadow of Mt. Ararat, where, according to legend, Noah landed his Ark after a great flood.
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“In this regard we also express our hope for a peaceful resolution of the issues surrounding Nagorno-Karabakh”, they said in the statement signed at Garegin’s headquarters in Echmiadzin, a small town near Yerevan.
