Sargsyan to Participate in Liturgy Led by Pope Francis Dedicated to Armenian Genocide

President Serzh Sargsyan and Pope Francis.

During an official visit to Italy, Armenia’s President Serzh Sargsyan will have meetings with the country’s leadership and participate in a number of events dedicated to the centenary of the Armenian Genocide, including a liturgy performed by His Holiness Pope Francis at Saint Peter’s Basilica in Vatican City on April 12.

The Armenian Catholic Patriarch Nerses Bedros XIX, His Holiness Karekin II, the Supreme Patriarch and Catholicos of All Armenians and Aram I, the Catholicos of the Great House of Cilicia are expected to participate in the service.

As part of his visit, President Sargsyan will also attend an exhibition titled, “Armenia: People of Ark” which will be held at the Vittoriano Museum Complex on April 10. The exhibition is devoted to the centenary of the Armenian Genocide.

The following day, on April 11, the Armenian President will  attend an ecclesiastical ceremony at Saint Gregory the Illuminator Church in Naples, to be performed by His Holiness Karekin II and Cardinal Sepe. While in Naples, he will participate at the opening and consecration ceremony of a memorial to the Armenian Genocide – a duplicate of one of the cross-stones from the Armenian cemetery of Julfa. The cemetery, located in the Azerbaijani exclave of Nakhichevan, originally housed around 10,000 khachkars (cross-stones) which bore characteristics of medieval Christian Armenian art. In the 1990s, the government of Azerbaijan began a systematic campaign to destroy the cross-stones. The cemetery was demolished and leveled.