Pope Francis’ agenda this June 12 has been marked by the visit to the Vatican of His Holiness Aram I, Catholicos of the Armenian Apostolic Church of Cilicia (Lebanon).
The meeting took place behind closed doors in the Holy Father’s personal office and the Vatican has not offered any further details.
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It is worth remembering that Pope Francis already received Aram I at the Vatican in June 2014. In that occasionthe Holy Father thanked him for his commitment to achieving Christian unity and affirmed that the suffering of the Armenian martyrs should be venerated “like the wounds of the very body of Christ.”
The Church in Armenia
The Church of Armenia proclaimed itself autonomous at the beginning of the 5th century, under the jurisdiction of a patriarch who took the name Catholicós, a title that was originally attributed to the head of a Christian community outside the confines of the Roman Empire.
It separated from the Catholic Church after the Council of Chalcedon, in the year 451, and is currently independent, autocephalous, and also defines itself as apostolic.
Although it maintains good relations with the Orthodox, Catholic and Protestant Churches, it has its own head, the Catholicós, which is completely independent of the ecclesiastical hierarchies of the other confessions.
It is worth remembering that in December 1996 Saint John Paul II and His Holiness the Catholicos of all Armenians Karekin II signed a joint declaration affirming the common origin of the Armenian Church and the Roman Catholic Church.
Who is Aram I?
His Holiness Aram I was born in Beirut (Lebanon), studied at the Armenian Theological Seminary of Antelias and at the Ecumenical Institute of Bossey (Geneva). He is a Catholicos of the Church of Armenia since 1995.
In addition to being specialized in philosophy and history of the Church in the Middle East, he is the founder of the Middle East Council of Churches and also the founder of the theological dialogue between the Byzantine Orthodox and Eastern Orthodox.
Almudena Martínez-Bordiú
I am a graduate in Journalism and Advertising from the CEU San Pablo University in Madrid. Specialized in religious information in Spain since 2015. I have been a senior correspondent for ACI Prensa and EWTN Noticias in the Vatican for two years and I am currently a European correspondent based in Spain.