groong: His Holiness Karekin II Departs for Official Visit to the EvangelicalLutheran Church of Finland

PRESS RELEASE
Mother See of Holy Etchmiadzin, Information Services
Address: Vagharshapat, Republic of Armenia
Contact: Rev. Fr. Ktrij Devejian
Tel: (374 1) 517 163
Fax: (374 1) 517 301
E-Mail: ktrij@etchmiadzin.am
June 4, 2004
His Holiness Karekin II Departs for Official Visit to the Evangelical
Lutheran Church of Finland
On June 2, His Holiness Karekin II, Supreme Patriarch and Catholicos
of All Armenians, departed for Finland upon the invitation of Most
Reverend Dr. Jukka Paarma, Archbishop of Turku, for an ecumenical
visit to the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland. The official
delegation of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland, headed by
the Archbishop Paarma, had previously visited the Mother See of Holy
Etchmiadzin in August 2002.
During the five-day trip, His Holiness is scheduled to visit to
the Finnish Bible Society, the Department of Orthodoxy and Eastern
European Studies, and will deliver lectures at the Departments of
Theology of the Universities of Helsinki and Joensuu. Also planned
are meetings with His Beatitude Archbishop Leo of Karelia and All
Finland of the Finnish Orthodox Church; Mr. Matti Taneli Vanhanen,
the Prime Minister of Finland; and other high-ranking state officials.
His Holiness will deliver sermons in the Orthodox Cathedral of
Uspenksi on Friday, June 4, and on Sunday, June 6 in the Finnish
Mother Cathedral of Turku. In the course of the visit, His Holiness
will meet with the local Armenian community as well.
His Holiness is accompanied by His Eminence Archbishop Mesrob
Krikorian, Pontifical Legate for Central Europe; His Grace Bishop
Yeznik Petrosian, Director of Inter-Church Relations for the Mother
See; His Grace Bishop Yezras Nersissian, Primate of the Armenian
Diocese of New Nakhijevan and Russia; and Rev. Fr. Mesrop Parsamian,
Staff-bearer of His Holiness.
His Holiness is scheduled to return to the Mother See on June 7.