Pope Franics visited the Tsitsernakaberd Memorial today accompanied by President Serzh Sargsyan  and Mrs. Rita Sargsyan, His Holiness Karekin II, other clergymen and officials.

After a prayerr at the memorial to the Armenian Genocide victims, the Pope visited the Memory Alley, where he watered and blessed a fir-tree planted on his behalf.

The Pope also left a note in the Book of Honorary Guests.

Later, Pope Francis talked to descendants of the 400 Armenian orphans who were rescued in 1915 and lodged at the papal Castel Gandolfo residence near Rome.

Speaking at the Presidential Palace yesterday, Pope Francis  denounced the “ideologically twisted, planned genocide of Armenians starting in 1915.”