Dear Brother in Christ,

It is a great joy for me to visit Your Beatitude, especially in the very place where the late Patriarchs Shenork I and Mesrob II, of happy memory, welcomed my predecessors. As I greet you, I would also like to extend my fraternal regards to His Holiness Karekin II, Supreme Patriarch and Catholicos of All Armenians, who recently honored me with a visit, as well as to the bishops, clergy and the entire Armenian Apostolic community in Istanbul and Türkiye.

This visit provides me with the opportunity to thank God for the courageous Christian witness of the Armenian people throughout history, often amid tragic circumstances. I would also like to express my deep gratitude to the Lord for the ever-closer fraternal bonds uniting the Armenian Apostolic Church and the Catholic Church. Shortly after the Second Vatican Council, in May 1967, His Holiness Catholicos Khoren I became the first primate of an Oriental Orthodox Church to visit and exchange the kiss of peace with the Bishop of Rome. I also recall that in May 1970, His Holiness Catholicos Vasken I signed with Pope Paul VI the first joint declaration between a Pope and an Oriental Orthodox Patriarch, inviting their faithful to rediscover themselves as brothers and sisters in Christ with a view to fostering unity. Since then, by God’s grace, the “dialogue of charity” between our Churches has flourished.

On this 1700th anniversary of the first ecumenical Council, my visit offers an opportunity to celebrate the Nicene Creed. We must draw from this shared apostolic faith in order to recover the unity that existed in the early centuries between the Church of Rome and the ancient Oriental Churches. We must also take inspiration from the experience of the early Church in order to restore full communion, a communion which does not imply absorption or domination, but rather an exchange of the gifts received by our Churches from the Holy Spirit for the glory of God the Father and the edification of the body of Christ (cf. Eph 4:12). It is my hope that the Joint International Commission for Theological Dialogue between the Catholic Church and the Oriental Orthodox Churches will be able to resume promptly its fruitful work, seeking a model of full communion “together, of course,” as Pope John Paul II wished in his Encyclical Ut unum sint (no. 95).

On this journey towards unity, we are preceded and surrounded by “a great cloud of witnesses” (Heb 12:1). Among the saints of the Armenian tradition, I would like to remember the great 12th-century Catholicos and poet Nerses IV Shnorhali, whose 850th anniversary of death we recently commemorated, and who worked tirelessly to reconcile the churches in order to fulfil Christ’s prayer that “they may all be one” (Jn 17:21). May the example of Saint Nerses inspire us and his prayer strengthen us on the path to full communion!

In thanking Your Beatitude for your warm welcome, I assure you of my wholehearted dedication to the holy cause of Christian unity. May we receive this gift from above with open hearts so that we may be ever more convincing witnesses to the truth of the Gospel and better servants of the mission of the one Church of Christ.