JUBILEE PILGRIMAGE
OF HIS HOLINESS JOHN PAUL II
TO THE HOLY LAND (MARCH 20-26, 2000)

ADDRESS OF JOHN PAUL II
TO THE ARMENIAN ORTHODOX PATRIARCH,
HIS BEATITUDE TORKOM II MANOUKIAN

Sunday, 26 March 2000

Your Beatitude,

It gives me great pleasure to visit you in your own residence, after having had the joy of meeting you in Rome on the occasion of the memorable visit of His Holiness Karekin the First in December nineteen-ninety-six. I cordially repeat the words I spoke at that time to the Catholicos Patriarch of All Armenians: "May the grace and cordiality of our meeting become like ‘a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts’ (cf. 2 Pet 1:19)".

Our meeting today is yet another step forward which the Lord has granted us for the strengthening of ties between the Catholic Church and the Armenian Apostolic Church. In this Jubilee Year when we pray more intensely that the Lord will grant us the gift of unity, may our friendship be like a prayer rising up to the Father like incense, like the fragrance of the evening sacrifice offered on the Cross by his beloved Son.

Your Beatitude, in visiting your home I feel like a brother in the midst of brothers who together are striving to build up the Church of Christ. I thank you for your gracious welcome, and I ask the Risen Lord to grant to you and to all the clergy and faithful of the Armenian Apostolic Church in the Holy Land his gifts of prosperity, joy and peace.