(Almudena Martínez-Bordiú. CNA).
For the first time in 10 years, Pope Francis met Wednesday with His Holiness Aram I, the leader of the Armenian Church of Cilicia with jurisdiction over some 800,000 Armenian Christians in Lebanon, Syria, Cyprus, Iran, and Greece.
The meeting took place behind closed doors in the Holy Father’s personal office and the Vatican has not offered any further details. Pope Francis last met with Aram I at the Vatican in June 2014. On that occasion, the Holy Father thanked him for his commitment to achieving Christian unity and affirmed that the suffering of the Armenian martyrs must be venerated “like the wounds of the very body of Christ.”