HOLY FATHER INAUGURATES ROME-ARMENIA EXHIBITION

VATICAN CITY, MAR 25, 1999 (VIS) - Yesterday afternoon in the Sala Regia, Pope John Paul inaugurated the Rome-Armenia Exhibition in the presence of Armenia's President Kocharian, His Holiness Karekin I, Catholicos of All the Armenians, and His Beatitude Jean Pierre XVIII Kasparian, patriarch of Armenian Catholics.

Karekin I was accompanied by His Beatitude Patriarch Torkom, archbishop of Jerusalem. Prelates, priests and lay people from these Churches also attended the opening.

"You have wished to honor the Church of Rome in the most beautiful manner accorded to Christians, by the witness of charity and the holy kiss of communion," the Holy Father told Catholicos Karekin I. "I deeply appreciate this delicate gesture, which constitutes a new and important chapter in the history of the common quest for full unity between Christ's followers."

John Paul II remarked that "communion does not mean the absorption and loss of one's own identity. Rather, it is a shared pilgrimage to the one Lord, preserving what is specific and gaining the strength and richness that comes from universality."

He then addressed "warm greetings" to Patriarch Kasparian, accompanied by bishops of his Church, and noted that "full communion with the See of Peter, while making this Church an integral part of the Catholic family, does not separate it from the marvelous heritage of spiritual life and culture which brings so much honor to the Armenian people."

Turning to the history of the Armenian people, the Pope said that, "despite opposition and even open persecution, Armenians did not close in upon themselves, but considered it vital ... to engage in an open and intelligent exchange with other peoples. ... They have always shown initiative and courage, ever sustained by the power of the Gospel which shaped their history and provided a solid foundation for their life."

"The relationship between Armenia and Rome preceded the coming of Christianity, but Christianity soon became the very reason for that relationship," affirmed the Pope. He added that communion between the Armenian Church in the Cilicia region and the Church of Rome "reached an intensity perhaps never attained in other cases."

If the cultural exchange "failed to yield more lasting fruit, it was in part due to the intransigence of some who perhaps were not able to appreciate fully the value of so providential an opportunity. On the Roman side, some of this lack of understanding was the result of tragic internal conflicts in the Western Church and the emergence of new canonical and theological concepts which made it more difficult to understand the ancient spiritual heritage of the East. For us today all of this is a motive of profound regret."
Pope John Paul then turned to the exhibition itself, commenting that "the objects on display in the Sala Regia - from the fragment of Noah's Ark from Echmiadzin to the archeological finds from ancient Cilicia ... are signs of the great things which God has done for the Armenian people. They are an invitation to ever deeper self-knowledge and ever greater self-esteem."

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