San Gabriel Valley Tribune, CA
Whittier Daily News, CA
Oct 8 2005

Armenian pontiff to visit memorial
By Debbie Pfeiffer Trunnell, Staff Writer

MONTEBELLO — Area Armenians were anxiously awaiting the arrival
today of the spiritual leader of one of the Armenian Apostolic
Church’s two branches, who will visit the city’s memorial to Armenian
genocide victims.
His Holiness Aram I, Catholicos of the Great House of Cilicia, will
conduct a brief religious ceremony at the Armenian Genocide Monument,
which commemorates the estimated 1.5 million Armenians believed to
have been massacred by the Turkish government in 1915.

“This is an occasion that does not come often, the tremendous
opportunity to see him and meet him,” said Zanku Armenian, spokesman
for the Western Prelacy of the Armenian Apostolic Church of America,
the church’s administrative body for the Western United States, which
is hosting today’s event.

The local visit at 10 a.m. in Bicknell Park is one of many stops in
the pontiff’s 15-day visit to California to mark the 90th anniversary
of the mass killings.

“It will be such an important event for me,” said Knar Kortoshian, a
member of the Western Prelacy. “It is our Catholicos paying his
respect to our martyrs’ monument and speaking on our rights as human
beings.”

The pontiff’s historic trip is focused on the theme of “Toward the
Light of Knowledge.” Aram I serves as the moderator for the World
Council of Churches, an organization representing more than 400
million Christians worldwide.

After visiting Montebello, he is scheduled to participate in a number
of religious ceremonies, education programs and youth forums in Los
Angeles, Fresno and San Francisco.

His holiness was elected in 1995 as head of the Great House of
Cilicia, the diaspora branch of the church, based in Lebanon.

During his many years of service, he has assumed important
responsibilities in the Armenian Catholiscosate of Cilicia, as well
as the worldwide ecumenical movement.