WCC Stresses Need for Public Recognition of Armenian Genocide
The World Council of Churches will join millions around the world in remembering the victims of the Armenian Genocide on Sunday, April 24, 2005.
"I am personally in communion with you in prayers and in solidarity with the cause of your people," wrote the WCC general secretary Rev. Dr Samuel Kobia in an 11 April letter addressed to the Catholicos of All Armenians, Supreme Patriarch Karekin II.
The Armenian Genocide has largely been recognized as the first genocide of the 20th century. According to numerous historians, some 1.5 million mostly Christian Armenians perished through a policy of deportation, torture, starvation, and massacre led by the Ottoman Empire.
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Turkey, however, denies that there was a planned campaign to eliminate Armenians but says both Turks and Armenians lost their lives. Turkey also says no more than 300,000 Armenians lost their lives through the clashes.
In recent years, the French, Swiss and Danish government as well as the Italian Parliament and the Vatican acknowledged the Armenian genocide as a historical fact.
According to the WCC, there is a growing “need for public recognition of the Armenian genocide and the necessity of Turkey to deal with this dark part of its history.”
For more information on the Armenian Genocide, visit: www.marchforhumanity.org.
