acknowledge "the tragic massacre" of over one million Armenians at a time when the country seeks membership of the European Union. The WCC also invited its members worldwide to commemorate the 90th anniversary of "the Armenian genocide" next week, April 24.
"This way of commemorating the tragic massacre of one-and-a-half million Armenians in Turkey and the deportation of another million from their homeland was recommended last February by the Council’s central committee," the WCC said in a statement to BosNewsLife News Center in Budapest, late Friday, April 15.
"In its recommendation to commemorate what was the first genocide of the 20th century, the governing body [of the WCC] stressed the need for public recognition of the Armenian genocide and the necessity of Turkey to deal with this dark part of its history," the organization said.
Armenians say 1.5 million of their number died in "a genocidal slaughter" between 1915 and 1917 in the last years of the Ottoman empire.
ANKARA DISPUTES
The Turkish government in Ankara disputes the scale and nature of the killing and insists the deaths were "not ethnically motivated" but resulted from a crackdown on parts of the population accused of collaborating with the Russians during World War I. Ankara also says that tens of thousands of Turks
were killed by Armenians.
Yet several European Union nations, have in recent years described the killings of Armenians already as a "genocide", which included many Armenian Christians, according to experts.
"I am personally in communion with you in prayers and in solidarity with the cause of your people," added WCC General Secretary Rev. Dr Samuel Kobia in a letter obtained by BosNewsLife, addressed to the Catholicos of All Armenians, Supreme Patriarch Karekin II.
"INTERCESSORY PRAYERS"
Kobia stressed he hopes that the "intercessory prayers [and] the fellowship of churches will offer on Sunday, April 24, will remind the world of the words of the Gospel: "Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the children of God".
Peter Weiderud, director of the WCC Commission of the Churches on International Affairs, said he hopes that ""services held all over the world on 24 April would encourage churches and Christians to reflect on truth, justice, repentance, forgiveness, reconciliation and healing of society".
The WCC is a fellowship of 347 churches in over 120 countries in all continents from virtually all Christian traditions. The Roman Catholic Church is not a member church "but works cooperatively" with the organization, the WCC claims.
(With BosNewsLife Research and reports from Geneva).
