c. 2007 Religion News Service
WASHINGTON (RNS) As Congress considers legislation that brands the killings of 1.5 million Armenians in 1915 “genocide,” the patriarch of the worldwide Armenian Church said Turkey’s resistance is “unacceptable.”
His Holiness Karekin II, the spiritual leader of 7 million Armenian Christians, stopped in Washington during a month-long U.S. tour and weighed in on a hot-button diplomatic fracas that is roiling the nation’s capital.
At issue is the massacre of Armenians on Turkish soil in the last days of the Ottoman Empire. On Wednesday (Oct. 10), the House Foreign Relations Committee passed a resolution that called the deaths a “genocide.”
President Bush issued a stern rebuke, saying the bill could threaten relations with Turkey, a strategic ally _ and moderate Islamic nation _ in the war on terrorism.
Turkish President Abdullah Gul has expressed discontent and recalled Turkey’s ambassador as a sign of protest.
Karekin, speaking Thursday (Oct. 11) on the steps of the Jefferson Memorial in a ceremony to mark religious freedom, said, “We believe that similar threats are unacceptable and we would desire a more positive approach by Turkey itself.”
Just hours before the House committee approved the non-binding resolution on Wednesday, Karekin met with Speaker Nancy Pelosi and offered the opening prayer in the House chamber. “With the solemn burden of history, we remember the victims of the genocide of the Armenians, the consequences of which are still felt by the entire world in new manifestations of genocide,” he prayed.
Edward Alexander, a former diplomat and parishioner at St. Mary Armenian Church here, joined Karekin on his visit with Pelosi and at the Jefferson Memorial. He said he lost members of his extended family in the massacre.
While the resolution may appear a symbolic gesture, it means a great deal to the Armenian community, he said. “This is the greatest country in the world,” said Alexander. “It’s a country of laws, deep democracy and justice.”
The Armenian Church holds a unique place outside of Catholicism, Eastern Orthodoxy and Protestantism. Armenia was the first country to proclaim Christianity the official state religion, in 301 A.D., preceding Roman Emperor Constantine by 12 years.
There are about 1 million Armenian Christians in three dioceses in the U.S. and Canada. The 1915 massacre fueled a wave of refugees to American shores, which helped build the U.S. church into the largest and most prosperous of the Armenian diaspora.
Karekin holds a position similar to the pope, and is the church’s 132nd catholicos, or supreme partiarch.
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