Pope Benedict XVI greets Supreme Patriarch Catholicos Karekin II of the Holy Armenian Apostolic Church (L) as he leads his weekly general audience in Saint Peter's square at the Vatican May 7, 2008. REUTERS/Dario Pignatelli (VATICAN)
Posted on 05/08/2008 6:30:01 AM PDT by NYer
VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - Armenia's Orthodox leader on Wednesday used the pulpit of the Vatican to condemn the 1915 killing of 1.5 million ethnic Armenians by Ottoman Turks, saying the whole world should recognise it as a genocide.
"We Armenians are a people who have survived genocide, and we know well the value of love, brotherhood, friendship and a secure life," Karekin II said in a public address during Pope Benedict's general audience in St. Peter's Square.
"Today, many countries of the world recognise and condemn the genocide committed against the Armenian people by Ottoman Turkey ..." the head of Armenia's Apostolic Church added, speaking in English before tens of thousands of people.
Karekin, who like the pope has the title "His Holiness," said he wanted to "appeal to all nations and lands to universally condemn all genocides that have occurred throughout history and those that continue to the present day ..."
Turkey strongly denies Armenian claims, saying that Muslim Turks also died in inter-ethnic conflict as the Ottoman Empire crumbled during World War One.
Western historians have backed Armenian claims that the killings amounted to a genocide.
In his address to Karekin before the crowd, Benedict spoke of "the severe persecutions suffered by Armenian Christians, especially during the last century," but did not use the word genocide.
Karekin, in his address broadcast live on many religious television stations around the world, said "the denial of these crimes is an injustice that equals the commission of the same".
France's lower house of parliament infuriated Turkey in 2006 by backing a bill that would make it a crime to deny that mass killings of Armenians amounted to genocide. France's Senate never ratified the bill.
Last year legislators in the U.S. House of Representatives proposed a resolution to formally name the massacre a genocide but the move faltered under stiff opposition by President George W. Bush and Turkey, a key NATO ally.
The word "genocide" appeared in a joint statement when Karekin visited the late Pope John Paul in 2000. But the Vatican, which has diplomatic relations with both Armenia and Turkey, has never formally recognised the killings as such.
John Paul visited Armenia in 2001 and prayed at a monument to the dead in the capital, Yerevan.
Our strength consists in our speed and in our brutality. Genghis Khan led millions of women and children to slaughter—with premeditation and a happy heart. History sees in him solely the founder of a state. It’s a matter of indifference to me what a weak western European civilization will say about me. I have issued the command—and I’ll have anybody who utters but one word of criticism executed by a firing squad—that our war aim does not consist in reaching certain lines, but in the physical destruction of the enemy. Accordingly, I have placed my death-head formation in readiness—for the present only in the East—with orders to them to send to death mercilessly and without compassion, men, women, and children of Polish derivation and language. Only thus shall we gain the living space (Lebensraum) which we need. Who, after all, speaks to-day of the annihilation of the Armenians?
—Adolf Hitler, August 22, 1939
The Germans apologize and the Turks giggle.
That is true, and I personally think the Armenians should “move along.” But the problem is that no one recognizes the depredations of Islam, and I think the thing that bothers the Armenians is that this was a violent Islamic conquest in modern times - and it’s not recognized as such.
Neat photo!
What bothers the Armenians the most is that they lost land to Turkey. They are not fans of Islam by any means, but they have always told me that they are very grateful to Muslim Arabs for receiving the Armenian refugees. Their problem is with Turks, including Azeris.
And the Hitler regime ended in 1945. So the Germans have apologized. The Japanese imperial regime still stands, so the Japanese will never apologize about Nanking.
What bothers the Armenians is that they lost a lot more than land to Turkey.
At that time, Turkey was the most functional Islamic country and the others had very little power. The Arab nationalist movement was growing and was seeing Islam (fundamentally, an Arab superiority cult, at its core) as its motivating power. And once it developed, thanks mostly to the Brits and their modernizing influence, we can see how wonderful Arab cultures were. Oddly enough, in modern times, Turkey has tried to divorce itself from the Islamic conquest mentality, but it’s been virtually impossible to do this and the only way it can be done is by imposing a police state. That’s the dynamic of Islam.
The Armenians, like many other historic victims of Turkish imperialism/atrocities, actually support the PLO and Arab moslems. It's the Turks they don't like.
All genocides (a word coined only after WWII) that have occurred throughout history? Wow. A lot of good that will do to people who have been dead for literally millenia.
Will this also include the exterminations of the Canaanites by Israel, an extermination commanded by G-d Himself? What about the coming (and equally commanded) extermination of `Amaleq?
These ancient ethnic churches of the orient are among the most liberal in the world. I can see them condemning the extermination of the Canaanites because "we now know" that G-d would "never" command such a thing.
Armenians are very much focused on getting their land back, especially from Turkey & Azerbaijan (they were 80% successful with Garabagh), but also from Iran & Georgia eventually. They hate the Turks for many reasons, & their overriding concern is getting the land back.
I was later to learn that 750,000 Assyrians were also martyred at the hands of the Turks.
I have the greatest empathy for what happened to the Armenian people, being of Greek descent. However, I am very much dismayed at the fact that when there are press releases, commentaries and conferences, the genocide of the Greek and Assyrian martyrs are never or hardly ever mentioned (this commentary being an example,)while Greek press releases ALWAYS mention the genocide of the Armenians and Assyrians.
The U.S. Ambassador Henry Morganthau to Turkey wrote in 1918,
"The Armenians are not the only subject people in Turkey which have suffered from this policy of making Turkey exclusively the country of the Turks. The story which I have told about the Armenians I could also tell with certain modifications about the Greeks and the Syrians. Indeed the Greeks were the first victims of this nationalizing idea."
You have my empathy. Sadly, this is also true of news reporting on the holocaust. Rarely does anyone mention the number of Catholics, or gypsies or those of other nationalities who were brutally murdered at the hands of the Nazis. The explanation generally given is that the primary target of the Nazis was the Jews. And that is also true for the Turks who struck out against the Armenians.
There is one genocide where no nationality is specified and that is the ongoing murder of unborn babies - Abortion. May God have mercy on our souls!
also note that the gypsies were decimated even worse than the Jews — Jews were still regarded as somewhat human, even by Nazies, while Gypsies were treated like vermin. And the Gypsies have never had any form of apology given to them
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