Venerable Brother,

Supreme Patriarch and Catholicos of All Armenians,

Brothers and Sisters in Christ,

God’s blessing be upon you all!

My pilgrim steps have brought me to Armenia to praise God for the light of the Gospel which,

seventeen centuries ago, spread through this land from this place where Saint Gregory the

Illuminator received the heavenly vision of the Son of God in the form of light. Holy Etchmiadzin

stands as the great symbol of Armenia’s faith in the only-begotten Son of God who came down

from heaven, who died to redeem us from sin, and whose resurrection inaugurates the new

heavens and the new earth. For all Armenians, Etchmiadzin remains the pledge of perseverance

in that faith, despite the suffering and bloodshed past and present, which your troubled history

has made the price of your fidelity. In this place I wish to testify that your faith is our faith in

Jesus Christ, true God and true man: “there is one Lord, one faith, one baptism” (Eph 4:5).

Here at Holy Etchmiadzin, I am overjoyed to return the kiss of peace which Your Holiness gave

me last November at the tomb of the Apostle Peter in Rome. With intense emotion, I greet you

and the Archbishops, Bishops, monks, priests and faithful of the beloved Armenian Apostolic

Church. As Bishop of Rome, I kneel in admiration of the heavenly gift of your people’s Baptism,

and I pay tribute to this temple, symbol of the nation, which, from the beginning, in accordance

with Saint Gregory’s vision, bears on its columns the sign of martyrdom.

Thank you, Holiness, for welcoming me to your home. This is the first time that the Bishop of

Rome, for the extent of his visit to a country, is staying in the home and sharing the daily life of

a Brother who presides over one of the glorious Churches of the East. Thank you for this sign of

love, which moves me deeply and speaks of profound friendship and fraternal charity to the

hearts of all Catholics.

My thoughts turn at this moment to your venerable predecessors. I am thinking of Catholicos

Vazken I who worked so much that his people might see the promised land of freedom, and

went to God just as independence had arrived. I am thinking of the unforgettable Catholicos

Karekin I who was like a brother to me. My desire to visit him when ill health had taken final

hold of him could not be fulfilled, even though I wanted it with all my heart. That wish is being

satisfied here today with Your Holiness, equally dear and beloved Brother. I look forward to

these days when, hand in hand with you, I shall meet the Armenian people and together we

shall thank Almighty God for seventeen hundred years of Christian fidelity.