c. 2000 Religion News Service

VATICAN CITY _ Pope John Paul II held a cordial meeting Thursday (Nov. 9) with the Armenian Catholicos Karekin II and pledged to “journey forward in friendship” toward healing a division that began with a theological dispute more than a millennium and a half ago.

Karekin, who heads the Armenian Apostolic Church, invited the Roman Catholic pontiff to travel to his seat in Etchmiadzin in Armenia next year for celebrations of the 1,700th anniversary of the “baptism of Armenia” as history’s first Christian nation.

During an ecumenical Mass in St. Peter’s Basilica on Friday (Nov. 10), John Paul will return to Karekin a venerated relic of the head of Gregory the Illuminator, the patron saint of Armenia. Along with the Apostles Bartholomew and Thaddeus, he evangelized Armenia, which made Christianity its state religion in the fourth century after Christ.

Meeting in the pope’s study overlooking St. Peter’s Square, the two prelates addressed each other warmly. Karekin greeted the pope as “dearly beloved brother in Christ” and John Paul responded by calling his visitor “dear and venerable brother.”

“May the Lord save us from stumbling as we journey forward in friendship,” the pope said in his prepared remarks.

Speaking of the severe social and economic problems that the smallest of the ex-Soviet republics has faced since the collapse of communism, John Paul said that “on the cultural and religious level, there is still much to be done to fill the spiritual void left behind by a godless and collectivist ideology.”

“The hour of freedom has sounded, and now is the time for solidarity,” he said. “The Catholic Church wants to stand with the Apostolic Armenian Church, to support its spiritual and pastoral ministry to the Armenian people in complete respect for its way of life and characteristic identity.”

Karekin said he rejoiced that the call for “Christian brotherhood and unity” sounds from “the very center of the Roman Catholic Church, the Vatican, and from the very heart and soul of her most graceful pontiff.”

Referring to the massacre of more than 2 million Armenians by Turkish forces between the end of the 19th century and 1918, the Armenian prelate said, “A century that began with the genocide of the Armenians now concludes with a new hope.”

Millions of Armenians fled what a United Nations Human Rights subcommission in 1973 termed “the first genocide of the 20th century,” and all but 2 million of the 7 million Armenians still live outside their homeland.

“Today, at the dawn of a new century, they await the universal recognition and condemnation of the Armenian genocide,” Karekin said.

The visit was the fourth to Rome by a supreme patriarch and catholicos of all Armenia and the first by Karekin since his election in October 1999 to succeed Karekin I, who died in June 1999.

The Roman Catholic and Armenian Apostolic churches have been divided since the Council of Calcedon in 451 over monophysitism, the belief that Christ had only one nature, which was a composite of human and divine.

Roman Catholics and Orthodox consider this a heresy and believe Jesus had a double nature.

The two churches went far to overcome their theological differences in 1996 when John Paul and Karekin I signed a “Common Christological Declaration” that said Christ’s nature was “a union that is real, perfect, without confusion, without alteration, without division and without any form of separation.” Still remaining to be resolved is the question of papal primacy.

Inviting the pope to participate in the anniversary of the conversion of the Armenians to Christianity, Karekin said John Paul’s presence would be “an honor both to the Armenian Church and to her children throughout the world.”

The Armenian Apostolic Church claims some 6 million members, mainly in Armenia, Georgia, the Middle East, Europe, and North and South America. The Armenian Catholic Church, founded in the 18th century by Pope Benedict XIV and linked to the Vatican, has some 250,000 members.

John Paul had planned to visit Etchmiadzin last July and while on a trip to Poland rescheduled the visit for late June because of the illness of Karekin I. A fever forced the pope to cancel the plan, and the catholicos died of cancer June 29.

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The relic that the pope will return to Karekin was brought to Italy in the eighth century by Armenian or Greek nuns of the Order of St. Basil, who had fled Constantinople. In recent centuries, it has been preserved in a convent in Naples dedicated to St. Gregory of the Armenians, also known as the Illuminator.

“Today our heart abounds with happiness as we come _ accompanied by high-ranking clergymen of the Armenian Church and representatives of our people from around the world _ to receive the relic of our patron saint, St. Gregory the Illuminator,” Karekin told the pope.

“In restoring this relic to the Armenians, the Catholic Church bears witness to the brotherhood between our two ancient churches,” he said. “With solemn gratitude we will escort these sacred remains to holy Etchmiadzin to be reunited with the relic of the Illuminator’s right hand.”

Karekin was accompanied to Rome by 17 prelates from Armenia, North and South America, Europe, Africa and Australia and by Razmig Margosian, Armenia’s minister of religious affairs.

DEA END POLK