Pope Francis signed the Honorary Guest Book by writing – “Here I pray with pain in my heart, so that never more will there be tragedies like this, so that humanity does not forget and knows how to overcome the evil with good. May God grant the beloved Armenian people and the entire world peace and consolation. May God protect the memory of the Armenian people. Memory should not be diluted or forgotten. Memory is source of peace and the future”.
“They shall build up the ancient ruins… they shall repair the ruined cities” (Is61:4). In this place, dear brothers and sisters, we can say that the words of the Prophet Isaiah have come to pass. After the terrible devastation of the earthquake, we gather today to give thanks to God for all that has been rebuilt”.
Pope Francis is popular in Armenia, a nation where Christian identity blends into Armenian identity. Many of the people especially women wear huge pectoral crosses and taxi drivers make the sign of the cross several times whenever they pass in front of churches.
The pope arrived Friday afternoon in Yerevan, the capital of Armenia, which he noted was the first country to adopt Christianity as a state religion. The downtown was decorated with Armenian and purple-and-yellow flags welcoming Pope Francis to “the first Christian nation.”
John Paul II became the first pope to visit Armenia with his 2001 trip and was the first pontiff to refer to the 1915 slaughter of an estimated 1.5 million Armenians in the Ottoman Empire as genocide, although he did so only in writing.
“Firstly, it seems to me that the resolution was conditioned by the fear of the British from migration crisis, threat of which really exists, ordinary citizens are afraid that Brussels will dictate its will to ordinary citizens, this is a crucial circumstance. That is, the British expressed in favor of sovereignty of their own country.”
“For Armenia, faith in Christ has not been like a garment to be donned or doffed as circumstances or convenience dictate, but an essential part of its identity, a gift of immense significance, to be accepted with joy, preserved with great effort and strength, even at the cost of life itself,” he said.
The Vatican spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi, said Francis always speaks of the need for reconciliation and that his declaration of a genocide must be taken in the context of recognizing a past horror to then move on in friendship and reconciliation. Lombardi denied that the Vatican’s diplomatic speechwriters had intentionally left the word out, saying they had intentionally left it up to the pope to decide what to say.
In an address to Armenia’s president and the diplomatic corps, Francis used the Armenian term ‘Metz Yeghern’ (the great evil), but then added to his prepared text “that genocide” to refer to what he also called “the first of the deplorable series of catastrophes of the past century”.
Most non-Turkish scholars of the events regard them as genocide. Among the other states which formally recognise them as genocide are Argentina, Belgium, Canada, France, Italy, Russia and Uruguay.
