WCC Stresses Need for Public Recognition of Armenian Genocide
Christian Post, CA
April 20 2005
Wednesday, Apr. 20, 2005 Posted: 6:21:19PM EST
The World Council of Churches will join millions around the world
in remembering the victims of the Armenian Genocide on Sunday, April
24, 2005.
“I am personally in communion with you in prayers and in solidarity
with the cause of your people,” wrote the WCC general secretary Rev.
Dr Samuel Kobia in an 11 April letter addressed to the Catholicos of
All Armenians, Supreme Patriarch Karekin II.
The Armenian Genocide has largely been recognized as the first genocide
of the 20th century. According to numerous historians, some 1.5 million
mostly Christian Armenians perished through a policy of deportation,
torture, starvation, and massacre led by the Ottoman Empire.
Turkey, however, denies that there was a planned campaign to eliminate
Armenians but says both Turks and Armenians lost their lives. Turkey
also says no more than 300,000 Armenians lost their lives through
the clashes.
In recent years, the French, Swiss and Danish government as well
as the Italian Parliament and the Vatican acknowledged the Armenian
genocide as a historical fact.
According to the WCC, there is a growing “need for public recognition
of the Armenian genocide and the necessity of Turkey to deal with
this dark part of its history.”
For more information on the Armenian Genocide, visit: