Pope Francis visits Genocide Memorial in Yerevan to remember 1.5 million Armenians killed in Ottoman Turkey
25.06.2016,
19:45
Pope Francis visited today the Tzitzernakaberd Genocide Memorial in Yerevan to lay a floral wreath in memory of 1.5 million Armenians killed at the hands of the Ottoman Turks during World War I.
YEREVAN, June 25, /ARKA/. Pope Francis visited today the Tzitzernakaberd Genocide Memorial in Yerevan to lay a floral wreath in memory of 1.5 million Armenians killed at the hands of the Ottoman Turks during World War I. The Pope was accompanied by Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan, First Lady Rita Sargsyan, the head of the Armenian Apostolic Church Catholicos Karekin II, senior clergy, government members and other dignitaries.
The Pope offered an intercessory prayer and extensive silent prayer for the dead. The ecumenical prayer service, held in memory of those fallen in the Armenian Genocide under the Ottoman Empire in 1915, consisted in the Our Father prayer, the reading of two Biblical passages (Heb 10,32-36 & John 14,1-13), and an intercessory prayer by Pope Francis.
Also present at the prayer service was a small group of descendants of the Armenian orphans who were taken in by Pope Pius XI in the 1920s and housed at his summer residence south of Rome.
After visiting the Tzitzernakaberd Memorial, Pope Francis singed the Honorary Guest Book at the Armenian Genocide Museum by writing: “We are praying here for the tragedy of the Armenian people, and let the humanity understand this and differentiate bad from good. Let the memory of the tragedy of the Armenian people stay within us, and it is the memory that will prevent similar crimes in the future”.
At the conclusion of the service, the Holy Father stopped briefly to bless and water a tree in remembrance of his visit to the Tzitzernakaberd Memorial.
Pope Francis then headed to Armenia’s second largest town of Gyumri for saying Mass in a public square there. In Gyumri, the Pope will visit the new Catholic cathedral of the Holy Martyrs, built last year. -0-
The Pope offered an intercessory prayer and extensive silent prayer for the dead. The ecumenical prayer service, held in memory of those fallen in the Armenian Genocide under the Ottoman Empire in 1915, consisted in the Our Father prayer, the reading of two Biblical passages (Heb 10,32-36 & John 14,1-13), and an intercessory prayer by Pope Francis.
Also present at the prayer service was a small group of descendants of the Armenian orphans who were taken in by Pope Pius XI in the 1920s and housed at his summer residence south of Rome.
After visiting the Tzitzernakaberd Memorial, Pope Francis singed the Honorary Guest Book at the Armenian Genocide Museum by writing: “We are praying here for the tragedy of the Armenian people, and let the humanity understand this and differentiate bad from good. Let the memory of the tragedy of the Armenian people stay within us, and it is the memory that will prevent similar crimes in the future”.
At the conclusion of the service, the Holy Father stopped briefly to bless and water a tree in remembrance of his visit to the Tzitzernakaberd Memorial.
Pope Francis then headed to Armenia’s second largest town of Gyumri for saying Mass in a public square there. In Gyumri, the Pope will visit the new Catholic cathedral of the Holy Martyrs, built last year. -0-
