Armenia - www.tourist-destinations.com
ishtartv.com - japantimes.co.jp
VATICAN
CITY – Pope Francis embarks on a three-day visit to Armenia Friday, just over a
year after he enraged Turkey by using the term genocide to describe the mass
killings of Armenians under the Ottoman Empire.
Armenia
was the first country to adopt Christianity as its state religion, which it did
in the year 301.
The
pontiff’s 14th overseas trip since his 2013 election is expected to see him
highlight the Vatican’s concern over instability, conflict and the plight of
Christians in the war-torn Middle East, which has resulted in his hosts having
to welcome tens of thousands of refugees.
But
his movements and statements will also be closely followed in Ankara, which
rejects the idea that a genocide took place during World War I and has accused
international powers of using disputed history as a means of bullying Turkey.
Highlights
of the papal trip will include a visit to Armenia’s main memorial to the
1915-17 killings, a meeting with members of the country’s small Roman Catholic
community and the release of two doves in the direction of Mount Ararat from
the Khor Virap sanctuary near the border with Turkey.
The
5,160-meter-tall Mt Ararat was Armenian until 1915. It is now inside Turkey’s
border. It features in the Bible as the place where Noah’s Ark supposedly came
to rest.
Francis
is the second pope to visit Armenia since it re-emerged as an independent state
from the ashes of the Soviet Union.
John
Paul II went there in 2001 to attend celebrations marking 1,700 years of the
adoption of Christianity in Armenia, which was the first country to have the
faith as its state religion.
John
Paul was also the first pope to recognise the slaughter of Armenians as
genocide, although he did so only in writing.
Francis
pronounced the word during a mass at St. Peter’s last year, winning great
praise from Armenians at the cost of infuriating Turkey, which withdrew its
ambassador in protest.
The
visit “bears religious, political, and humanitarian messages,” said Father
Shahe Ananyan, a cleric in the Armenian Apostolic Church, to which the vast
majority of the country’s population belong.
By
visiting the Tsitsernakaberd genocide memorial on Saturday morning, “the
Pontiff makes it clear that he is steadfast in his position on the matter,”
Ananyan added.
“This
is a message to the entire Catholic world, to those who didn’t yet recognise
the genocide. This will favour international recognition.
“By
separating his visit to Armenia from his regional trip (to the Caucasus, later
in autumn), Francis stresses that the Armenian Apostolic Church has a special
place in the Christian world as a bearer of Christian values and its role in
preserving these values.”
Over
13,000 people have booked tickets to attend the mass the pope will preside over
in Gyumri with pilgrims from Lebanon and Georgia’s Armenian-populated Javakheti
region expected to be among them.
In
an Armenian-rite mass at St. Peter’s basilica in April 2015, Francis said the
massacres suffered by Armenians between 1915 and 1917 are “widely considered
the first genocide of the 20th century.”
Vatican
officials have avoided using the term in the build-up to the visit and it is
unclear whether Francis will risk inflaming tensions with Turkey by doing so at
any point.
In a
video message to the Armenian people ahead of the trip, Francis said their
history provoked pain and admiration.
“Admiration
because you have found in Jesus’ cross and in your spirit, the ability to
always recover, including from suffering that has been among the worst humanity
has experienced, pain for the tragedies that your fathers lived in the flesh.”
|