Author: Badalian Vardan

Video published by Pope Francis (@franciscus)Jun 27 2016 at 5:04 PDT

A photo report of Pope Francis’ three-day visit to Armenia has been posted on the Pope’s page on Instagram.

Pope Francis and Catholicos Karekin II, leader of the Armenian Apostolic Church on Sunday signed a common declaration giving thanks for the progress towards Christian unity and appealing for peace in the Middle East and other regions torn apart by conflict, terrorism and religious persecution.

Joint Declaration of His Holiness Francis and His Holiness Karekin II at Holy Etchmiadzin, Republic Of Armenia

Today in Holy Etchmiadzin, spiritual center of All Armenians, we, Pope Francis and Catholicos of All Armenians Karekin II raise our minds and hearts in thanksgiving to the Almighty for the continuing and growing closeness in faith and love between the Armenian Apostolic Church and the Catholic Church in their common witness to the Gospel message of salvation in a world torn by strife and yearning for comfort and hope. We praise the Most Holy Trinity, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, for enabling us to come together in the biblical land of Ararat, which stands as a reminder that God will ever be our protection and salvation. We are spiritually gratified to remember that in 2001, on the occasion of the 1700^th anniversary of the proclamation of Christianity as the religion of Armenia, Saint John Paul II visited Armenia and was a witness to a new page in warm and fraternal relations between the Armenian Apostolic Church and the Catholic Church. We are grateful that we had the grace of being together, at a solemn liturgy in Saint Peter’s Basilica in Rome on 12 April 2015, where we  pledged our will to oppose every form of discrimination and violence, and commemorated the victims of what the Common Declaration of His Holiness John-Paul II and His Holiness Karekin II spoke of as “the extermination of a million and a half Armenian Christians, in what is generally referred to as the first genocide of the twentieth century”  (27 September 2001).

We praise the Lord that today, the Christian faith is again a vibrant reality in Armenia, and that the Armenian Church carries on her mission with a spirit of fraternal collaboration between the Churches, sustaining the faithful in building a world of solidarity, justice and peace.

Sadly, though, we are witnessing an immense tragedy unfolding before our eyes, of countless innocent people being killed, displaced or forced into a painful and uncertain exile by continuing conflicts on ethnic, economic, political and religious grounds in the Middle East and other parts of the world. As a result, religious and ethnic minorities have become the target of persecution and cruel treatment, to the point that suffering for one’s religious belief has become a daily reality. The martyrs belong to all the Churches and their suffering is an “ecumenism of blood” which transcends the historical divisions between Christians, calling us all to promote the visible unity of Christ’s disciples. Together we pray, through the intercession of the holy Apostles, Peter and Paul, Thaddeus and Bartholomew, for a change of heart in all those who commit such crimes and those who are in a position to stop the violence. We implore the leaders of nations to listen to the plea of millions of human beings who long for peace and justice in the world, who demand respect for their God-given rights, who have urgent need of bread, not guns. Sadly, we are witnessing a presentation of religion and religious values in a fundamentalist way, which is used to justify the spread of hatred, discrimination and violence. The justification of such crimes on the basis of religious ideas is unacceptable, for “God is not the author of confusion, but of peace” (I Corinthians 14:33). Moreover, respect for religious difference is the necessary condition for the peaceful cohabitation of different ethnic and religious communities. Precisely because we are Christians, we are called to seek and implement paths towards reconciliation and peace. In this regard we also express our hope for a peaceful resolution of the issues surrounding Nagorno-Karabakh.

Mindful of what Jesus taught his disciples when he said: “I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me” (Matthew 25: 35-36), we ask the faithful of our Churches to open their hearts and hands to the victims of war and terrorism, to refugees and their families. At issue is the very sense of our humanity, our solidarity, compassion and generosity, which can only be properly expressed in an immediate practical commitment of resources. We acknowledge all that is already being done, but we insist that much more is needed on the part of political leaders and the international community in order to ensure the right of all to live in peace and security, to uphold the rule of law, to protect religious and ethnic minorities, to combat human trafficking and smuggling.

The secularization of large sectors of society, its alienation from the spiritual and divine leads inevitably to a desacralized and materialistic vision of man and the human family. In this respect we are concerned about the crisis of the family in many countries. The Armenian Apostolic Church and the Catholic Church share the same vision of the family, based on marriage, an act of freely given and faithful love between man and woman.

We gladly confirm that despite continuing divisions among Christians, we have come to realize more clearly that what unites us is much more than what divides us. This is the solid basis upon which the unity of Christ’s Church will be made manifest, in accordance with the Lord’s words, “that they all may be one” (John 17.21). Over the past decades the relationship between the Armenian Apostolic Church and the Catholic Church has successfully entered a new phase, strengthened by our mutual prayers and joint efforts in overcoming contemporary challenges. Today we are convinced of the crucial importance of furthering this relationship, engaging in deeper and more decisive collaboration not only in the area of theology, but also in prayer and active cooperation on the level of the local communities, with a view to sharing full communion and concrete expressions of unity.  We urge our faithful to work in harmony for the promotion in society of the Christian values which effectively contribute to building a civilization of justice, peace and human solidarity. The path of reconciliation and brotherhood lies open before us. May the Holy Spirit, who guides us into all truth (cf. John 16:13), sustain every genuine effort to build bridges of love and communion between us.

From Holy Etchmiadzin we call on all our faithful to join us in prayer, in the words of Saint Nerses the Gracious: “Glorified Lord, accept the supplications of Your servants, and graciously fulfil our petitions, through the intercession of the Holy Mother of God, John the Baptist, the first martyr Saint Stephen, Saint Gregory our Illuminator, the Holy Apostles, Prophets, Divines, Martyrs, Patriarchs, Hermits, Virgins and all Your saints in Heaven and on Earth. And unto You, O indivisible Holy Trinity, be glory and worship forever and ever. Amen”.

Holy Etchmiadzin, 26 June 2016

His Holiness Karekin II                                                             His Holiness Francis

President Serzh Sargsyan has left for the Nagorno Karabakh Republic for a working visit, the President’s Press Office reports.

The Co-Chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group (Ambassadors Igor Popov of the Russian Federation, James Warlick of the United States of America, and Pierre Andrieu of France) met with Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Elmar Mammadyarov in Brussels on 31 May and with Armenian Foreign Minister Edward Nalbandian in Paris on 2 June to discuss implementation of the decisions from the 16 May summit in Vienna. The Personal Representative of the OSCE Chairperson-in-Office, Ambassador Andrzej Kasprzyk, also participated in the meetings.

The Ministers reaffirmed their commitment to a peaceful resolution of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. The Co-Chairs delivered to the Ministers for the consideration of the sides draft documents on expanding the existing office of the Personal Representative of the OSCE Chairperson-in-Office and establishing an OSCE investigative mechanism.

The Ministers confirmed the Presidents’ agreement on the next round of talks to be held in June with an aim to resuming negotiations on a comprehensive settlement.

“We believe that remembering and educating people about any genocide – Armenian, the Holocaust, Bosnia, Rwanda and others is a necessary tool to prevent future tragedies,” says ADL head.

– The massacre of 1.5 million Armenians in the early years of the 20th century was “unequivocally genocide,” the head of the Anti-Defamation League said.

His added that his organization will support US recognition of the Armenian Genocide, a move the civil rights group resisted for many years.

ADL CEO Jonathan Greenblatt on Friday staked out the ADL’s strongest position on the subject in his blog post for Yom Hashoah, Holocaust Remembrance Day in Israel, ahead of the organization’s national convention that began Sunday in Washington, D.C. Greenblatt tied the events to the Holocaust.

“Let me be crystal clear: …What happened in the Ottoman Empire to the Armenians beginning in 1915 was genocide,” he wrote.

“We believe that remembering and educating people about any genocide – Armenian, the Holocaust, Bosnia, Rwanda and others is a necessary tool to prevent future tragedies,” he also wrote.

Greenblatt said that the Jewish community’s experience regarding the Holocaust is relevant to the discussion, pointing out that at the end of World War II, there was “wide­spread shame in the West­ern world at the real­iza­tion that anti-Semitism was deeply embed­ded across cul­tures and coun­tries and could pro­duce such hor­ror.”

He cautioned that the passage of time since the Holocaust has in some way eviscerated the sense of shame that has inhibited anti-Semitism, and is allowing it to reemerge in full force, which shows that “we must edu­cate each gen­er­a­tion about the tragedies of the past.”

“Silence is not an option,” he wrote.

Until August, 2007, the ADL, under the leadership of then-National Director Abraham Foxman, did not use the term genocide to describe the massacre. It reversed course after an internal debate went public and a grassroots campaign by Armenian American activists targeted the ADL in Boston and other cities and towns with large Armenian populations.

Foxman has since used the term Armenian genocide including in a 2014 speech. For many years, the group opposed formal recognition by the US Congress, citing concerns for the Turkish Jewish community and relationship between Turkey, Israel and the US.

New England’s ADL Director Robert Trestan told the Boston Globe on Sunday that Greenblatt’s post was the “most unequivocal statement that we’ve ever issued.” Trestan took part in meetings between the ADL and local and national Armenian and Jewish groups, the Globe reported.

The statement does not go far enough, according to Andrew Tarsy, the former New England ADL director whose dispute over the issue with the national leadership in 2007 led to his temporary ouster by Foxman, who later reinstated Tarsy.

Tarsy, a noted civil rights attorney, told the Globe that the ADL ought to lead conversations about reparations for families. “Everything that Holocaust reparations has represented should be on the table,” he said.

May 7 is Radio Day, an invention that changed the world, in general, and the world of communication, in particular.

On August 27, 1926 the “Soviet Armenia” newspaper informed: “The construction of the radio station in Yerevan has been completed. The station will start operating in five days.”

The Voice of Yerevan was first heard on air in September, 1926. On April 6, 1927 the first radio schedule consisting of news and concerts was printed in the press.

The Day of Radio was first observed in Moscow on May 7, 1945. From that time on May 7 has been marked in Armenia as Radio Day.

The Armenian Ministry of Transport and Communication has launched the .Armenian: domain, which will work along the English language .am domain name. President:.Armenian:  will be the first official website to be registered in the Armenian script.

The current .am domain was assigned to the Republic of Armenia in 1994, the Internet Society NGO got the right to register it in the same year. The same NGO retains the right to manage the .Armenian: domain.

The registration process started back in 2012, Vice-President of the Internet Society NGO Grigory Saghyan told reporters today. He noted that “writing in the Armenian script is compulsory for the system to recognize the website you are trying to access.”

For accessing websites registered on the Armenian: domain from abroad it will be necessary to install an Armenian keyboard, and the Windows provides that opportunity.

The Ministry of Transport and Communication has offered all state bodies to register their websites on the Armenian: domain. The cost is the same as with the .am – 9-10 thousand AMD for registration and 1,000 AMD monthly service fee.

150 applications have already been submitted for registration, of which 70 are government agencies.

Some 300 people gathered on Saturday in St. James Monastery in the Armenian Quarter of Jerusalem and held a ceremony commemorating 101 years to the beginning of the Armenian Genocide, the reports.

The ceremony was held after a mass that was led by Armenian Patriarch of Jerusalem Nourhan Manougian, and was attended by the leaders of Armenian community in Jerusalem. The service honored the memory of some 1.5 million Armenian victims whom Ottoman forces killed between 1915 and 1923, mainly in Syria.

Commemorative events will be held throughout the world this year under the shadow of the ongoing violence between Armenia and Azerbaijan over Nagorno-Karabakh. Dozens have been killed so far in clashes that started earlier this month.

Harut Baghamian, one of the organizers of the ceremony, a member of the Homenetmen youth movement and a descendant of Armenian Genocide refugees, told The Jerusalem Post that the Armenian community is disappointed from the way Israel deals with the memory of the genocide. “It’s not that they are denying like some countries, they are just not talking about it,” he said.

However, Baghamian sees in the Jewish people a partner of the Armenians. “There were some Israeli politicians that have expressed their feelings about the genocide in the past, and we appreciate that.

But we expect from the government to honor their values before politics,” he said.

“We understand that this is a political issue. We receive a broad support from the Israeli public. There is much resemblance between the Armenians and the Jews all throughout the history, hence we expect from the Jewish state to be the first to acknowledge and to speak out about the issue. The Armenians know about the horrors of the Jewish Holocaust so we hope that the Israeli government will act the same.”

On Sunday, members of the Armenian community and social activists will protest in front of the Turkish Consulate in Jerusalem and the Turkish Embassy in Tel Aviv.

President Serzh Sargsyan received today the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation Sergey Lavrov who has arrived to Armenia on official visit.

At the meeting discussed were issues pertinent to the Armenian-Russian relations and situation resulting from the military offensive unleashed by Azerbaijan on April 2-5 in the NK conflict zone.

Welcoming the RF Minister of Foreign Affairs to Armenia, President Sargsyan noted that the agenda of the Armenian-Russian relations is pretty full and that at different, including high-level meetings, the parties discuss a wide range of issues. “As it happens, the visit of the Chairman of the RF Government Dmitry Medvedev and your visit are taking place at the moment when the situation in our region is rather tense. It is no secret that the situation has been created by the irresponsible actions of Azerbaijan. By unleashing large-scale military actions against Nagorno Karabakh, Azerbaijan has proved once again that Karabakh and Azerbaijan have nothing in common. Azerbaijan, which utilized its entire military force, certainly received a worthy counterblow. However, in my opinion, the actions of Azerbaijan have thrown the process of negotiations far from its track. In that process, we were always constructive, were always confident that eventually the Co-Chairs of the Minsk Group would present their vision for the resolution of the problem, and would spell out the name of the party which rejects the proposals. Unfortunately, the Azeris decided that they could violate with impunity the agreement signed in 1994-95 as well as the commitments which were reached in the course of these lengthy negotiations. We started this phase in 2007. Nine years in a row, we were an active participant and witness to the process, trying to find mutually acceptable solutions; we were trying to be constructive. We were convinced that the problem could be solved exclusively based on compromise, through peaceful means, however today we have what we have. For that very reason, your point of view is very important to me: why did it happen? We certainly have our own ideas, however you are much more informed and we would appreciate if you present us your point of view,” said President Serzh Sargsyan.

The RF Minister of Foreign Affairs Sergey Lavrov thanked the President of Armenia for the opportunity to meet with him and presented the results of the negotiations conducted prior to his meeting with the President of Armenia. “We have already had good negotiations; have observed the course of implementation of the bilateral agreements which you have reached with President Putin. In some instances we are having delays; however adherence to all principled agreements is there. It is our main objective – to work on the tasks issued by the Presidents. We have also discussed the situation with the resolution of the Nagorno Karabakh issue, and we are deeply concerned with what has happened. As you know, from the very beginning, the Russian side, the President personally has been working to stop the breach of the agreements signed in 94-95 which are of permanent nature. Today we have reiterated that and called to under no circumstance disregard these most important documents. The bloodshed was stopped. Nevertheless, as you understand, the situation has not entirely stabilized, and we believe that at this stage it is extremely important to call to life agreements between you and the President of Azerbaijan reached five years ago with the Russian mediation – about the mechanisms for the investigation of the incidents, prevention of incidents and confidence building measures, so that any threat of confrontation is reduced even if through simple technical steps. Corresponding instructions have been given to the OSCE, and now we want the German presidency engage in it actively. I understand what you mean, Mr. President, of course, that at the moment it is difficult to come back to the table of negotiations. The situation should calm down a little, people should calm down a little. We once again express our condolences for the victims of this conflict, but I agree with you that there is no military solution to the conflict, which means we need to make efforts for its political resolution.

As for why the situation has reached such a critical point, I cannot speak for Armenia, Azerbaijan, or Karabakh, but I think if we were able to move forward in the political process, even a little, if we were able to preset the general principles which could have been accepted by the sides at least as a basis for the creation of the legally binding documents, it would certainly played an important role for resuming the negotiations and would also become a constraint against the outbreak of hostilities. But I repeat that only the parties themselves can find solutions. We have been trying and will continue to try to help the Co-Chairs together with Americans and French. We have a consolidated position, and as I understand, Armenia supports the position that the triumvirate of the Co-Chairs together with the OSCE should continue its work as the main coordinator in accordance with the mandate which the parties agreed to provide to that mechanism. We do not welcome a search for other, parallel avenues, or attempts to create mechanisms which are not endorsed by all parties. It will only deviate from the main problem, i.e. to ensure security, to prevent new loss of lives, but at the same time conditions for the political process should be created,” said the RF Minister of Foreign Affairs Sergey Lavrov.