On Sunday morning, 26 March, the Holy Father paid a courtesy
call on Armenian Orthodox Patriarch Torkom II Manooghian in
Jerusalem. Here is the English text of the Pope's greetings to
the prelate.
Your Beatitude,
It gives me great pleasure to visit you in your own residence, after having had the joy of meeting you
in Rome on the occasion of the memorable visit of His Holiness Karekin the First in December
nineteen-ninety-six. I cordially repeat the words I spoke at that time to the Catholicos Patriarch of
All Armenians: "May the grace and cordiality of our meeting become like ‘a lamp shining in a dark
place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts’ (cf. 2 Pet 1:19)".
Our meeting today is yet another step forward which the Lord has granted us for the strengthening
of ties between the Catholic Church and the Armenian Apostolic Church. In this Jubilee Year when
we pray more intensely that the Lord will grant us the gift of unity, may our friendship be like a
prayer rising up to the Father like incense, like the fragrance of the evening sacrifice offered on the
Cross by his beloved Son.
Your Beatitude, in visiting your home I feel like a brother in the midst of brothers who together are
striving to build up the Church of Christ. I thank you for your gracious welcome, and I ask the Risen
Lord to grant to you and to all the clergy and faithful of the Armenian Apostolic Church in the Holy
Land his gifts of prosperity, joy and peace.
|
