Venerable Brother,<\/p>\n
Supreme Patriarch and Catholicos of All Armenians,<\/p>\n
Brothers and Sisters in Christ,<\/p>\n
God\u2019s blessing be upon you all!<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
My pilgrim steps have brought me to Armenia to praise God for the light of the Gospel which,<\/p>\n
seventeen centuries ago, spread through this land from this place where Saint Gregory the<\/p>\n
Illuminator received the heavenly vision of the Son of God in the form of light. Holy Etchmiadzin<\/p>\n
stands as the great symbol of Armenia\u2019s faith in the only-begotten Son of God who came down<\/p>\n
from heaven, who died to redeem us from sin, and whose resurrection inaugurates the new<\/p>\n
heavens and the new earth. For all Armenians, Etchmiadzin remains the pledge of perseverance<\/p>\n
in that faith, despite the suffering and bloodshed past and present, which your troubled history<\/p>\n
has made the price of your fidelity. In this place I wish to testify that your faith is our faith in<\/p>\n
Jesus Christ, true God and true man: “there is one Lord, one faith, one baptism” (Eph 4:5).<\/p>\n
Here at Holy Etchmiadzin, I am overjoyed to return the kiss of peace which Your Holiness gave<\/p>\n
me last November at the tomb of the Apostle Peter in Rome. With intense emotion, I greet you<\/p>\n
and the Archbishops, Bishops, monks, priests and faithful of the beloved Armenian Apostolic<\/p>\n
Church. As Bishop of Rome, I kneel in admiration of the heavenly gift of your people\u2019s Baptism,<\/p>\n
and I pay tribute to this temple, symbol of the nation, which, from the beginning, in accordance<\/p>\n
with Saint Gregory\u2019s vision, bears on its columns the sign of martyrdom.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Thank you, Holiness, for welcoming me to your home. This is the first time that the Bishop of<\/p>\n
Rome, for the extent of his visit to a country, is staying in the home and sharing the daily life of<\/p>\n
a Brother who presides over one of the glorious Churches of the East. Thank you for this sign of<\/p>\n
love, which moves me deeply and speaks of profound friendship and fraternal charity to the<\/p>\n
hearts of all Catholics.<\/p>\n
My thoughts turn at this moment to your venerable predecessors. I am thinking of Catholicos<\/p>\n
Vazken I who worked so much that his people might see the promised land of freedom, and<\/p>\n
went to God just as independence had arrived. I am thinking of the unforgettable Catholicos<\/p>\n
Karekin I who was like a brother to me. My desire to visit him when ill health had taken final<\/p>\n
hold of him could not be fulfilled, even though I wanted it with all my heart. That wish is being<\/p>\n
satisfied here today with Your Holiness, equally dear and beloved Brother. I look forward to<\/p>\n
these days when, hand in hand with you, I shall meet the Armenian people and together we<\/p>\n
shall thank Almighty God for seventeen hundred years of Christian fidelity.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
APOSTOLIC VOYAGE IN ARMENIA
\nPRAYER VISIT
\nADDRESS OF JOHN PAUL II
\nApostolic Cathedral, Etchmiadzin
\n25 September 2001<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":28013,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[51,93],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-28017","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-other-posts","category-visit-of-pope-john-paul-ii-to-armenia-2001"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/armenianchurchco.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28017","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/armenianchurchco.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/armenianchurchco.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/armenianchurchco.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/armenianchurchco.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28017"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/armenianchurchco.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28017\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28020,"href":"http:\/\/armenianchurchco.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28017\/revisions\/28020"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/armenianchurchco.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28013"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/armenianchurchco.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28017"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/armenianchurchco.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28017"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/armenianchurchco.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28017"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}