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Catholicos Condemns Genocide Before
Pope
 VATICAN CITY (Reuters)—On May 7, Catholicos Karekin II used
the pulpit of the Vatican to condemn the 1915 killing of 1.5
million ethnic Armenians by the Ottoman Turks, saying the
whole world should recognize it as a genocide.
“We Armenians are a people who have survived genocide, and
we know well the value of love, brotherhood, friendship, and
a secure life,” Karekin II said in a public address during
Pope Benedict’s general audience in St. Peter’s Square.
“Today, many countries of the world recognize and condemn
the genocide committed against the Armenian people by
Ottoman Turkey,” the head of Armenia’s Apostolic Church
added, speaking in English before tens of thousands of
people.
Karekin II said he wanted to “appeal to all nations and
lands to universally condemn all genocides that have
occurred throughout history and those that continue to the
present day...”
In his address to Karekin II before the crowd, Benedict
spoke of “the severe persecutions suffered by Armenian
Christians, especially during the last century,” but did not
use the word “genocide.”
Karekin, in his address broadcast live on many religious
television stations around the world, said that “the denial
of these crimes is an injustice that equals the commission
of the same.”
The word “genocide” appeared in a joint statement when
Karekin visited the late Pope John Paul in 2000. But the
Vatican, which has diplomatic relations with both Armenia
and Turkey, has never formally recognized the killings as
such.
John Paul visited Armenia in 2001 and prayed at the Armenian
Genocide Memorial in Dzidzernagapert in Yerevan.
—Philip Pullella
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