GREETING OF HIS HOLINESS, ARAM I, CATHOLICOS OF CILICIA OF THE ARMENIANS

Vatican Radio
ticolo.asp?c=247804
Nov 26 2008
The Vatican

(26 Nov 08 – RV) His Holiness, Aram I, Catholicos of Cilicia of the
Armenians greeted Pope Benedict XVI during the weekly General Audience
Wednesday morning. Below is the transcript and audio of His Holiness’
remarks…

Your Holiness, it gives me a profound spiritual joy to greet you once
again in the spirit of Christian love and fellowship. I would like
also to greet the faithful of the Church of God who have come here
from different parts of the world to get the blessing of Your Holiness.

This Saturday the Armenian Church is going to celebrate its
Founders. As Saint Peter and Saint Paul are the Founders of the Church
of Rome, Saints Thadddaeus and Bartholomew, the disciples of Christ
are Founders of the Armenian Church. Our two Churches have Apostolic
origin, but for centuries for our Churches, the apostolicity has
never been a sheer ideological legacy but a source of witness and
evangelism of diakonia and mission.

The world of today in which we are experiencing the decay of moral
values, the marginalization of spiritual values and Tradition I
believe that we should translate the apostolic origin of our Churches
to apostolic vocation.

And I greet the See of Your Holiness to involve the Churches in this
period of time where we are faced with tremendous problems and crises
in a process of re-evangelization.

I believe that we need re-evangelization of our Christian communities,
our families, our communities, this is a top priority, an evangelistic
priority to our churches.

Therefore, Your Holiness I would like to associate myself with
the missionary and evangelistic work of Your Holiness and on this
occasion I would like to make a special appeal to all the churches
of the world to join their efforts in a common evangelism in Europe,
in the Middle East and in different parts of the world.

Therefore, on this occasion, Your Holiness, I would like to extend to
you my best wishes. May God strengthen you physically and spiritually
to carry on your Pontifical mission in a world which is in dire need
of spiritual transformation. And may God Bless you all.