Vatican, Mar. 20 (CWNews.com) – Pope Benedict XVI (bio – news) voiced his prayer for the reunification of Armenian Christians, as he met on March 20 with the Armenian Catholic Patriarch Nerses Bedros XIX Tarmouni and an accompanying group of pilgrims from Lebanon.
Looking back across the history of Christianity in Armenia, the Pope noted the divisions among the different churches “that recognize St. Gregory the Illuminator as their common founding father.” (St. Gregory established Christianity in Armenian in 301.) He acknowledged with satisfaction that the different Armenian churches “have resumed a cordial and fruitful dialogue,” and looked forward to the time when they might regain “fraternal harmony internally, in full communion with the Bishop of Rome.”
A tragic history has contributed to the divisions among Armenian Christians, the Pope observed. He mentioned the Metz Yeghern, or “great evil,” that saw hundreds of thousands of Armenians slaughtered by Turkish persecutors during the forced migration from the Mediterranean to the land now known as Armenia. While the Armenian Apostolic Church is now established both in that country and in Lebanon, the diaspora caused the Armenian Catholic community to find a new base in Lebanon.
Today the Armenian Apostolic Church claims about 7 million faithful, including 2 million in Armenia, another 2.4 million in nearby Russian and Georgia, and about 500,000 in the Middle East, with the remained spread across Europe and the Americas. The Armenian Catholic Church has about 345,000 members, primarily in the Middle East but also spread worldwide.
During the past 50 years the Armenian Apostolic Church has drawn closer to the Vatican in ecumenical talks; Pope John Paul II (bio – news) and the late Catholicos Karekin II, the head of the Armenian Church, signed a joint statement essentially ending the doctrinal disputes that caused a split after the Council of Chalcedon in 451. Pope Benedict observed that it was a “comforting sign of the unity we hope for” when Pope John Paul joined in celebrating the 1700th anniversary of the founding of Christianity in Armenia.
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