2016-06-25 12:20:00

Pope Francis at the Tzitzernakaberd Memorial


(Vatican Radio) On Saturday 25th of June, the second day of his Apostolic journey to Armenia, Pope Francis participated in a prayer service at the Tzitzernakaberd Memorial to the Metz Yeghern, or 'Great Evil', as Armenians refer to the 1915 massacres. A dark chapter for this nation which Pope Francis has referred to as 'genocide'.

Listen to Veronica Scarisbrick's report: 

The monument built in the 1960’s during the Soviet era has become since independence a symbol of national renaissance. While here Pope Francis prayed at length. In a special way during an ecumenical prayer service, held in memory of those fallen in the massacre of Armenians under the Ottoman Empire in 1915, which consisted in the Our Father, the reading of two Biblical passages and an intercessory prayer.

It was a moving ceremony during which Pope Francis also prayed in silence and  laid a wreath of flowers by the 44 metre column which symbolizes the renaissance of Armenia as well as two roses with the Vatican colours, so one yellow one white by the eternal flame of the Memorial complex. 

The Memorial stood out against the backdrop of snow capped Mount Ararat with its biblical connotations and the ceremony was accompanied by mournful music. It  ended with Pope Francis planting a fir tree in a gesture symbolic of hope and peace.

But there was one last significant event during this ceremony, the encounter of Pope Francis with ten descendants of the Armenain refugees who found a safe haven in the Vatican apostolic palace of Castelgandolfo in the 1920’s under the pontificate of  Pius XI. 








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