Pope Benedict XVI on Friday recalled the "martyrdom" of the Armenian Apostolic Church during a visit by its leader Karekin II, avoiding the word "genocide" pronounced several times by his predecessor John Paul II.Karekin II, on the fourth and final day of a visit to the Vatican, had on Wednesday urged "all nations to universally denounce the Armenian genocide" in a speech to some 20,000 people gathered in St Peter's Square.
On Friday, however, the pope said: "The recent history of the Armenian Apostolic Church has been written in the contrasting colours of persecution and martyrdom, darkness and hope, humiliation and spiritual rebirth.
"The restoration of freedom to the Church in Armenia has been a source of great joy for us all," the 81-year-old pontiff added.
In November 2000, a meeting at the Vatican between John Paul II and Karekin II ended with a joint statement condemning the Armenian "genocide."
The following year, at Karekin II's invitation, the Polish pope travelled to Armenia where the two religious leaders again spoke of "the extermination of one-and-a-half million Armenian Christians in what is generally called the first genocide of the 20th century."
John Paul II also spoke of the "annihilation of thousands of people that followed under the former totalitarian regime," referring to Soviet-era religious persecution.
On Friday, Karekin II invited Benedict XVI to visit Armenia both in his own name and on behalf of new President Serzh Sarkisian.
The two religious leaders had private talks after the pope led an ecumenical celebration in the Apostolic Palace's imposing Clementine Hall.
The Armenian Apostolic Church, one of the world's oldest independent churches, numbers some seven million adherents of whom two million live in present-day Armenia.
Armenians say up to 1.5 million of their kinsmen died in orchestrated killings during the final years of the Ottoman Empire, with more than 20 countries officially recognising genocide as the decades passed.
Turkey says 300,000 Armenians and at least an equal number of Turks were killed in civil strife when the Christian Armenians, backed by Russia, rose up against the Ottomans.
The dispute has been a major obstacle in relations between Turkey and Armenia, which have no diplomatic ties and whose border has remained closed for more than a decade.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
No responsibility or liability shall attach itself to either myself or to the blogspot ‘Clerical Whispers’ for any or all of the articles placed here.
The placing of an article hereupon does not necessarily imply that I agree or accept the contents of the article as being necessarily factual in theology, dogma or otherwise.
Sotto Voce