POPE CONSECRATES STATUE OF GREGORY ILLUMINATOR
VATICAN, January 21 (Noyan Tapan). According to the “Regnum” News
Agency, Pope John Paul II, the Head of the Roman-Catholic Church,
opened and consecrated the statue of Holy Gregory Illuminator (Grigor
Lusavorich), the first Catholicos of the Armenian Apostolic Church,
erected in Vatican on the outside niche of the Cathedral of St. Peter.
In connection with the 1700th anniversary of the adoption of the
Christianity in Armenia as a state religion, Patriarch of the Armenian
Catholic Church Nerses Petros XIX turned to the Pope with a request to
erect the monument to the first Catholicos of the Armenian Apostolic
Church. The pontific satisfied the request of the Patriarch, and the
5.7-meter and 26-ton marble statue was erected. Khachik Ghazanchian, a
French sculptor of Armenian origin, is the author of the monument. In
2000, in Vatican Pope John Paul II gave Catholicos of All Armenians
Karekin II the relics of the Holy Gregory Illuminator, which are now
in the new Cathedral in Yerevan.