In the year 2014, the world recalls the events that took place during World War I. Whether being the year 2014 or a century earlier, the bloodshed on daily bases has been the dominant norm of a whole century.
This year is not less bloody, where the world marks the anniversary of the massacres committed against ethnic and religious components in Turkey. The question that arises a 100 years after the killing of one-and-a-half million Armenians and half a million Syriacs in the period 1915 to 1918 is: Is it called a genocide or not? The answer to this question was incontestable as the European Parliament voted unanimously to label it as such, namely genocide, being one of the most heinous crimes in history.
Pope Francis also marked alongside the Armenians, the Syriacs, the Assyrians, and the Greeks the centenary of the genocide. He explicitly said:"It was the first genocide in the 20th century." Terming them as martyrs, he noted that the 20th century witnessed three unimaginable genocides and tragedies, namely the Armenian massacres in addition to the crimes committed by the Nazism and Stalinism.
Pope Francis also presented the Armenian people and Church with a gift by declaring Saint Gregory of Narek, who lived in the village of Narek in the 10th century, a Doctor of the Church. This very title was only given to 36 people only in history in recognition of their achievements in the areas of writing as well as teachings relevant to theology and doctrine.
Apart from the Turkish protest over the Pope's statements--since the genocide that took place a hundred years ago is considered a crime against humanity and is punishable under international law--what is more grave is not merely addressing the wounds of the past which go deep into the heart of humanity, but rather stopping the bleeding where killing and destruction is the dominant practice, where the Almighty God is still being used to justify violence, where religious and ethnic components are being killed and displaced at a time when the world has entered a dark tunnel called by some circles "the third world war".
With Pope Francis, and with the reverberations of the Armenian and Syriac hymns at St. Peter's Basilica in the Vatican in memory of the souls of the martyrs, and with pleasant scent of incense produced by Armenian deacons, we say: "It seems that humanity is not able to stop the shedding of innocent blood. It seems, furthermore, that the enthusiasm which emerged at the end of World War II began to fade away. It also seems that the human community refuses to learn from its mistakes which emanate from the law of the jungle. Up to this very moment, there are those who try to eliminate others with the help of a third party, and through the collusive silence of others who play the role of observers. We have not learned yet that 'war is stupidity; it is a useless massacre'."
May God have mercy on the martyrs of humanity, every time and every place.
