Catholicos Aram I arrives in Yerevan to participate in canonizing 1.5 million Armenians massacred in Ottoman empire

YEREVAN, April 23. / ARKA /. Catholicos of the Great House of Cilicia Aram I has arrived in Yerevan by a special flight  to participate in a service canonizing up to 1.5 million Armenians massacred in the Ottoman Empire.

The service will be held Thursday evening in Armenia's main church, Etchmiadzin, a 4th-century building believed to be the Christian world's oldest cathedral. After the ceremony to be led by Catholicos of All Armenians, Karekin II, bells will chime in Armenian churches across the world and a minute of silence will be observed.

In canonizing the genocide victims, "the Church only recognizes what happened: that is, the genocide", Karekin II said ahead of the event.

Catholicos  Aram I has brought to Armenia remains of the victims of genocide, which were kept  in the chapel of the Holy Martyrs in the Great House of Cilicia in Lebanon. Aram I is accompanied by a delegation of bishops and archimandrites. 

On Wednesday Turkey recalled its ambassador to Vienna in protest against the Austrian parliament's decision to call the massacre "genocide." Earlier this month Ankara recalled its envoy to Vatican after Pope Francis described the killings as "the first genocide of the 20th century." 

More than 20 nations - including France and Russia - have so far recognized the Armenian genocide, a definition supported by numerous historians.

On April 24 hundreds of thousands will  join a procession in the capital Yerevan to remember the victims.

Commemorations will be held also In Paris, Los Angeles and hundreds of other cities across the globe.

Russian Vladimir Putin and French President Francois Hollande are  among a handful of world leaders to travel to Armenia for the commemorations.

The Armenian Catholicosate of the Great House of Cilicia is a hierarchal see of the Armenian Apostolic Church. Since 1930, the Catholicosate of the Great House of Cilicia has been headquartered in Antelias, Lebanon. 

His Holiness Aram I has served as Catholicos of Cilicia of the Armenian Apostolic Church since 1995.-0-