SITTING OF WORLD COUNCIL OF CHURCHES

Azg/arm
24 Feb 05

The Central Committee of the World Council of Churches called its
sitting in Geneva on Feb. 15-22. Archbishop Aghan Paliozian and Silva
Ghazelian represented the Holy See of Etchmiadzin. His Holiness Aram I
Catholicos of Cilicia presided the sitting.

Bishop Ilarion Alfeyev from Austria’s Russian Orthodox Church offered
in the course of the sitting to call for all WCC member-churches to
remember the victims of the Armenian Genocide in their prayers in
April of 24 and to organize further programs on this occasion. “The
road to justice and reconciliation as a necessary precondition
demands, from Christian standpoint, acceptance of the committed crimes
in order to heal the memories and bring forgiveness”, the Committee’s
statement reads.

The opening ceremony of the sitting was accompanied by archbishop
Aghan Paliozian’s prayer.