Catholicos Karekin II invited Pope Leo XIV to visit Armenia

Catholicos of All Armenians Karekin II met with Pope Leo XIV and invited the Pontiff to visit Armenia. During the meeting, which was the first since the election of the new head of the Catholic Church on May 8 this year, the sides discussed church issues, including the fate of Artsakh Armenians, and reaffirmed the need for a just peace. According to Vatican News, the meeting was held in a fraternal and sincere atmosphere.

According to the representative of the Armenian Apostolic Church of Echmiadzin to the Holy See, Archbishop Khajag Barsamian, various church issues were discussed during the dialog. He also emphasized that both hierarchs reaffirmed the necessity of establishing peace based on justice.

Although this is the first meeting between Karekin II and Leo XIV, the Armenian Patriarch’s visits to the Vatican have a long tradition. The first visit took place 25 years ago, on November 9 and 10, 2000, when the newly elected Catholicos of All Armenians met with Pope John Paul II. At that time, a «Joint Declaration» was signed, aimed at restoring unity between the two Churches and based on the May 12, 1970 declaration signed by Pope Paul VI and His Holiness Vazgen I.

In the years that followed, the dialog continued. In 2001, John Paul II made the first ever Apostolic Visit to Armenia. In 2008, the Catholicos met with Pope Benedict XVI, and Garegin II had several meetings with Pope Francis: the first in the Vatican in 2015, then in 2016 during the Bishop of Rome’s visit to Armenia, as well as two meetings in 2018 and one in 2020.

As a reminder, on July 20, 2025, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan published a series of statements in his Telegram channel, in which he compared the situation around Catholicos of All Armenians Karekin II to an example of corporate ethics. In particular, he cited the example of the CEO of Astronomer, who resigned after the revelation of adultery because, according to him, «family values are fundamental» to the company’s corporate culture.