German churches to commemorate Genocide centenary with joint prayer

October 7, 2014 - 17:35 AMT

PanARMENIAN.Net - Ahead of the Armenian Genocide centenary, the German Inter-Church Council has called on the churches across the country to commemorate the victims of the tragic massacres.

According to Tert.am, in an official statement adopted after its annual assembly in Magdeburg, it the Council urged to respect the memory of the 1.5 million Armenians slaughtered in the Ottoman Turkey.

“We honor the memory of the Armenians, as well as around 600,000 Aramaic, Assyrian, and Greek Christians, including Catholics and Protestants, killed along with their Armenians brothers and sisters.”

“The Armenian Apostolic Church in Germany is a member of the Inter-Church Council, and in solidarity with it, we'll commemorate the Genocide centenary in 2015. In 2005, the German Bundestag highlighted Germany’s historical and moral responsibility for it. As functioning churches in Germany, we jointly bear that responsibility and consider it necessary to refer to it every time.

“Hence, the 2014 Inter-Church Council Assembly in Magdeburg encourages and calls upon its member churches and communities to commemorate it with prayers and memorial events,” reads the statement.

The participants also considered a 2012 proposal for organizing joint prayers with the Armenian, Assyrian and Greek churches.

The Armenian Genocide

The Armenian Genocide (1915-23) was the deliberate and systematic destruction of the Armenian population of the Ottoman Empire during and just after World War I. It was characterized by massacres and deportations, involving forced marches under conditions designed to lead to the death of the deportees, with the total number of deaths reaching 1.5 million.

The majority of Armenian Diaspora communities were formed by the Genocide survivors.

Present-day Turkey denies the fact of the Armenian Genocide, justifying the atrocities as “deportation to secure Armenians”. Only a few Turkish intellectuals, including Nobel Prize winner Orhan Pamuk and scholar Taner Akcam, speak openly about the necessity to recognize this crime against humanity.

The Armenian Genocide was recognized by Uruguay, Russia, France, Lithuania, Italy, 45 U.S. states, Greece, Cyprus, Lebanon, Argentina, Belgium, Austria, Wales, Switzerland, Canada, Poland, Venezuela, Chile, Bolivia, the Vatican, Luxembourg, Brazil, Germany, the Netherlands, Paraguay, Sweden, Venezuela, Slovakia, Syria, Vatican, as well as the European Parliament and the World Council of Churches.