Armenian Church makes saints of 1.5 million genocide victims

THE Armenian Church yesterday began a ceremony making saints of up to 1.5 million Armenians massacred by Ottoman forces as tensions over Turkey’s refusal to recognise the killings as genocide reached boiling point.

The ceremony, which is believed to become the biggest canonisation service in history, came ahead of commemorations expected to see millions of people including heads of state today mark 100 years since the start of the killings.

The service was being held in Armenia’s main church, Echmiadzin, an austere fourth-century edifice said to be the Christian world’s oldest cathedral, an AFP correspondent reported.

The ceremony outside the Armenian capital, Yerevan, was set to end at 7:15 pm (1515 GMT) to symbolise the year when the massacres started during World War I.

“Today’s canonisation unites all Armenians living around the globe,” Huri Avetikian, an ethnic Armenian librarian from Lebanon who arrived in her ancestral homeland to attend the service, told AFP.

“Souls of the victims of the genocide will finally find eternal repose today,” said 68-year-old social worker, Varduhi Shanakian. “Supreme justice will triumph,” he said ahead of the ceremony.

After the ceremony led by Catholics of All Armenians, Karekin II, bells will chime in Armenian churches across the world and a minute of silence will be observed.

In canonising the victims, “the Church only recognises what happened: that is, the genocide”, Karekin II said ahead of the event which Christian Today, an online publication covering religious news, said could become “the biggest saint-making service in history”.