His Holiness Karekin II Extends Sympathies to Pope John Paul II

PRESS RELEASE
Mother See of Holy Etchmiadzin, Information Services
Address: Vagharshapat, Republic of Armenia
Contact: Rev. Fr. Ktrij Devejian
Tel: (374 1) 517 163
Fax: (374 1) 517 301
E-Mail: [email protected]
August 4, 2004

His Holiness Karekin II Extends Sympathies to Pope John Paul II

His Holiness Karekin II, Supreme Patriarch and Catholicos of All Armenians,
has sent a letter of sympathy and support to Pope John Paul II, related to
the terrorist events directed against Catholic churches in Iraq on August 1,
2004.

The letter of His Holiness states in part, “We are saddened that some
extreme elements are attempting to endanger the centuries of friendship and
peaceful co-existence among the Christian and Muslim peoples of the East,
and offer our prayers to the Almighty that the love of our Lord Jesus Christ
will enter into the hearts of men, reconcile them one to another, and that
violence and war will be eliminated from the region and all of humanity.”

The Catholicos of All Armenians has sent a similar letter to the Patriarch
of the Armenian Catholics, His Beatitude Nerses Bedros XIX.