Leo received the supreme head of the Armenian Apostolic Church at the papal summer residence outside Rome for talks which Garegin’s office said highlighted “brotherly ties” between the two churches.
“The Catholicos of All Armenians expressed confidence that relations between the two Churches will continue to develop in the same fraternal spirit and warmth, resulting in new and good joint achievements,” read a statement released by it.
It said that the two religious leaders discussed “disasters and worrying developments taking place in the world” and “challenges and trials facing Armenia and the Armenian people.” Garegin brough up with Leo “the imperative of preserving the Armenian spiritual and cultural heritage facing destruction in Artsakh and releasing prisoners of war and hostages,” according to the statement.
“The Pope emphasized that peace must be established on the basis of justice,” Archbishop Khajag Barsamian, the Armenian Church’s representative to the Vatican, told RFE/RL’s Armenian Service.
Neither Leo nor his late predecessor Pope Francis has publicly criticized Azerbaijan over its actions in Karabakh and Armenia. Critics in and outside Armenia have rebuked the Vatican for accepting in recent years Azerbaijani government funding for some of its restoration projects.
The Holy See has also been criticized for allowing the Azerbaijani government to hold at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome in April this year a conference clearly designed to deny the Armenian origin of Karabakh’s medieval churches.
NAGORNO-KARABAKH -- People look at bells removed form the medieval Armenian Dadivank monastery as ethnic Armenians leave the region for Armenia, November 14, 2020.
The Pillar, an American news website focusing on the Catholic Church, quoted another Armenian archbishop, Vicken Aykazian, as saying at the time that financial ties to Baku have influenced Vatican policy on Armenia.
“There’s a lot of people and a lot of media articles asking why the Vatican is forgetting their friends in Armenia, and it is because there are cardinals and Vatican officials in touch with Azerbaijan and getting money from them,” said Aykazian.
Garegin similarly accused Azerbaijan of committing ethnic cleansing in Karabakh and illegally occupying Armenian border areas during a conference hosted by the World Council of Churches (WCC) in Switzerland in May. Azerbaijan’s top Shia Muslim cleric closely linked to the government in Baku protested against “the provocative, revanchist propaganda of the Armenian Church” in a letter to the WCC.
As Garegin attended the WCC forum in Bern, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian began attacking the church’s top clergy in daily social media posts that sparked an uproar from opposition leaders and prominent public figures. He accused Garegin and other senior clergymen of having had secret sex affairs in breach of their vows of celibacy. Pashinian went on to demand Garegin’s resignation.
He insisted late last month that he has not abandoned plans to “free” the Echmiadzin seat of the Catholicos with the help of his supporters. Pashinian’s detractors say his campaign is aimed at pleasing Azerbaijan and/or neutralizing a key source of opposition to his unilateral concessions to Armenia’s arch-foe.