DATE: Sunday 19th of April, 2015
Pope Francis sparked a diplomatic row last week by calling the massacre of up to 1.5 million Armenians 100 years ago "the first genocide of the 20th century," prompting Turkey to accuse him of inciting hatred.
At an Armenian rite Mass in St. Peter's Basilica to mark the 100th anniversary of the mass killings, Francis became the first head of the Roman Catholic Church to publicly pronounce the word "genocide" to describe them.
Turkey was swift to protest. "The pope's statements, which are far from historical and judicial facts, cannot be accepted," Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said on his Twitter account.
"Religious offices are not places to incite hatred and revenge with baseless accusations," he said.
The foreign ministry called its ambassador to the Holy See back to Ankara, and summoned the Vatican's ambassador, saying Francis' remarks had caused a "problem of trust" in diplomatic relations.
Muslim Turkey accepts that many Christian Armenians died in clashes with Ottoman soldiers beginning in 1915, when Armenia was part of the empire ruled from Istanbul, but denies hundreds of thousands were killed and that this amounted to genocide.
But the Armenians of Yerevan and their extended once-displaced brothers around the world beg to differ. So for the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide join the Armenians who now call Beirut home in honoring the memory of the victims of the Armenian genocide and of all crimes against humanity.
The event will be hosted by Lebanese Armenian award-winning performer Eileen Khatchadourian.
500 lanterns will be released into the sky during the event in honor of all victims of genocide.