Pope Francis welcomes His Holiness Karekin II to the Vatican

His Holiness Karekin II Supreme Patriarch and Catholicos of All Armenians of the Holy Mother See of Etchmiadzin met with Pope Francis Sunday 27 September.  The visit was cut short given the conflict in Nagorno Karabakh that reoccurred on the early morning of Sunday 27 September.  The Patriarch returns to Armenia on the same day.

Patriarch Karekin II arrived in Rome on Saturday 26 September and was welcomed by Vatican Authorities for his official visit to the Vatican.  He was to meet with Cardinal Pietro Parolin, Secretary of State, Cardinal Leonardo Sandri, Prefect of the Congregation for the Oriental Churches, Cardinal Kurt Koch, President of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity.  

His Holiness Karekin’s visit to Pope Francis follows the official visit of Archbishop Paul R. Gallagher, Secretary of Relations with States, to the Holy Mother See of Etchmiadzin last month of November 2019.  In the spring of 2019 the Cardinal Secretary of State, His Eminence Pietro Parolin, met with His Holiness Karekin II in Florence.  

Pope Francis is particularly sensitive to the people of Armenia and visited the country in 2016.  Previously he raised the Armenian Apostolic Church’s Saint Gregory of Narek to Doctor of the Universal Church.  Later in 2018 a statue of the great mystic saint was unveiled in the Vatican gardens in the presence of His Holiness Karekin II, His Holiness Aram I, Catholicos of the Great House of Cilicia and the Catholicos-Patriarch of Cilicia of the Armenian Catholic Church, His Beatitude Gregory Peter XX Ghabroyan.

The Armenian Apostolic Church has fostered increased relations with the Roman See.  With the support of the Catholic Church the Apostolic Armenian Church seeks to open new places of worship in Italy for their Apostolic Church faithful.