Armenia’s president thanks the Pope for the mass on the genocide centenary
13.04.2015,
11:02
Armenia’s president Serzh Sargsyan expressed his gratitude to Pope Francis for the mass served in the Vatican on Sunday on the 100th anniversary of the 1915 Armenian genocide in Ottoman Turkey, the presidential press office reported.
YEREVAN, April 13. /ARKA/. Armenia’s president Serzh Sargsyan expressed his gratitude to Pope Francis for the mass served in the Vatican on Sunday on the 100th anniversary of the 1915 Armenian genocide in Ottoman Turkey, the presidential press office reported.
The president thanked the Pope in a talk after the mass.
On Sunday the head of the Roman Catholic Church served a landmark mass in the Armenian Catholic rite in St. Peter’s Basilica. In his speech, Pope Francis used the world genocide in describing the mass killings of Armenians in Ottoman Turkey a century ago.
“In the past century our human family had lived through three massive and unprecedented tragedies. The first, which is widely considered ‘the first genocide of the 20th century’, struck your own Armenian people,” the pontiff said. The second two, the Pope said, were Nazism and Stalinism.
The Pope’s statement provoked anger in Turkey.
The pressure on Pope Francis was unprecedented before the mass. The Turkish side has tried to prevent the ceremony in every way possible, but the efforts were in vain. The liturgy was not only served, but also broadcast live.
Armenian genocide was the first genocide committed in XX century. Turkey rejects the accusation of massacres and the killing of one and a half million Armenians during World War I.
The fact of the Armenian genocide is recognized by many countries, particularly by Uruguay, Russia, France, Lithuania, most of the U.S. states, as well as by the parliaments of Greece, Cyprus, Argentina, Belgium, Wales, National Council of Switzerland, Common House of Canada, the Seym of Poland and lower house of Italian parliament. –0—
