ANSA English Media Service
May 9, 2008 Friday 2:29 PM CET

ARMENIAN PATRIARCH IN TALKS WITH POPE

Vatican City

(ANSA) – Vatican City, May 9 – The head of the Armenian Apostolic
Church, Karekin II, on Friday invited Pope Benedict XVI to visit
Etchmiadzin, the Armenian Church’s equivalent of the Vatican. Karekin
arrived in Rome with a delegation of bishops from the Armenian Church
earlier this week and on Friday met with the pope ahead of an
ecumenical service at the Vatican attended by both religious
leaders. Speaking at the event, Benedict expressed his gratitude for
the excellent relations between Catholics and the Armenian Church, but
said that ”there is still much to do to calm the deep and sorrowful
divisions” between the various Christian churches worldwide.

”The road towards the re-establishment of full and visible communion
between all Christians remains long and arduous,” he said. The pope
also highlighted the struggle of the Armenian Church, echoing an
appeal to the international community he made on Wednesday in St
Peter’s Square to condemn the deaths of 1.5 million Armenians at the
beginning of the 20th century during a Turkish campaign of
”denationalisation”. ”The recent story of the Armenian Apostolic
Church has been written with the contrasting colours of persecution
and martyrdom, of obscurity and hope, of humiliation and spiritual
rebirth,” said Pope Benedict. He also noted that the patriarch and
his bishops ”have personally undergone these contrasting experiences
in their own families and lives”. The pope praised Karekin II for
reconstructing the Armenian Church ”with significant pastoral results
over a short time, in Armenia and abroad, for the Christian education
of the young, the formation of a new clergy, the construction of new
churches and community centres, charitable aid and the promotion of
Christian values in social and cultural life”. ”The restoration of
the freedom of the Church in Armenia has been a source of great joy
for us,” Benedict said. On Thursday Karekin visited the basilica of
St Bartholomew – one of the first preachers who came to Armenia –
where the saint is buried on Rome’s Isola Tiberina. The small former
Soviet republic of Armenia is one of the oldest Christian nations in
the world, having adopted Christianity in 301 AD, and is surrounded by
predominantly Muslim nations. The elected patriarch, or Catholicos, is
head of all the Armenian communities throughout the world and has his
seat at at Etchmiadzin.