Historian: Pope Benedict ХV called to stop violence against Armenians back in 1915

PanARMENIAN.Net - Back in 1915, Pope Benedict ХV sent a letter to Turkish sultan Mehmet V to call on him to stop the outrage against the Armenian population, a historian said.

When commenting on Vatican’s intention to publish documents on the Armenian Genocide, deputy director of the Armenian Genocide Museum-Institute (AGMI) Suren Manukyan told a PanARMENIAN.Net reporter that no one saw these archives or worked with them.

“It’s obvious that Vatican’s archives contain abundant information about the atrocities. However, Vatican is unlikely to publish all documents and will display some of them, which, nevertheless, will be used by Genocide scholars for a deeper study,” he said.

When late Pope John Paul came to Armenia in 2001 to celebrate the 1700th anniversary of the founding of Christianity in Armenia, he handed over a rough copy of Benedict ХV’s diary, who called on the Turkish sultan “for peace and reconciliation so that the Armenian people stop being the victims of cruelty and revenge.”

Last week Italian media reported that the Vatican will co-publish a book with documents and information about the Armenian Genocide. the papers are from the Vatican Secret Archives, and, to quote Monsignor Sergio Pagano, the clergyman who runs the archives, “they make me feel ashamed to be a man.”