Pope Leo XIV and Catholicos Aram I: An Encounter in the Spirit of Christian Orient Carlo Coppola
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Aram I e Leone XIV pregano insieme https://www.vaticannews.va/it/papa/news/2026-05/leone-xiv-libano-catholicos-cilicia-aram-i-armenia-udienza.html |
Questo articolo di Carlo Coppola è apparso su "InCittà Giovinazzo" diretto da Papas Antonio Calisi
On the very same day that the Holy See announced the publication of Pope Leo XIV's first encyclical, Magnifica humanitas — devoted to the safeguarding of the human person in the age of artificial intelligence — the Pontiff received in private audience His Holiness Aram I, Catholicos of the Great House of Cilicia of the Armenian Apostolic Church. This chronological coincidence is far from incidental: it already offers precise indications of the ecclesial and diplomatic character of the new pontificate.
This was the first official visit of H.H. Catholicos Aram I to Leo XIV, and its significance must be read on several levels. Aram I is a figure of the highest prominence in the landscape of Eastern Christianity and one of the most authoritative interlocutors of the Holy See in its relations with the Armenian Apostolic Church: a rigorous theologian, an indefatigable protagonist of international ecumenical dialogue, and among the founders of the Middle East Council of Churches. His presence in Rome carries with it the weight of a singular history — that of a people who have known collective martyrdom and who, with extraordinary tenacity, have preserved their Christian identity across centuries of dispersion and persecution.
The meeting took the form of a private encounter, concluding with a moment of shared prayer in the Chapel of Urban VIII within the Apostolic Palace — a choice that was far more than a matter of protocol, laden instead with symbolic value, and saying something profound about the intention of both primates to ground their dialogue not merely on the diplomatic level, but on the spiritual one. In his address to the Catholicos, Leo XIV expressed deep concern for the Lebanese people and for the Churches of the East — words which, in the mouth of a new Pope, carry the weight of a deliberate orientation, not of a diplomatic courtesy.
At the heart of their discussions, according to reports, were the situation of Christians in the Middle Eastern region, the prospects for humanitarian and cultural cooperation, and the role that the Churches may play in promoting peace and interreligious coexistence. This constellation of themes finds its point of greatest density in the Lebanese question: the Great House of Cilicia is headquartered in Antelias, Lebanon, a country suspended for years between an incomplete reconstruction and an institutional fragility that shows no sign of resolution. The Catholicossate of Cilicia — situated historically at the crossroads of peoples and cultures, and marked from its very origins by a pronounced ecumenical vocation toward Rome — represents in this context a bastion of Christian civilisation whose value extends far beyond confessional boundaries.
The meeting confirms the solidity of a dialogue patiently built over time between the Holy See and the Armenian world — a dialogue whose roots reach down into the shared memory of martyrdom and into a common solicitude toward ancient communities increasingly exposed today to the pressures of Middle Eastern geopolitics. Leo XIV appears determined to embrace and deepen this patrimony of relations: an ecumenism less ceremonial and more operational, capable of translating theological affinity into common action in the face of the crises of the present.
The programme of the visit also included meetings with the Dicastery for Promoting Christian Unity and with other bodies of the Roman Curia. On 19 May, at the Pontifical Oriental Institute, His Holiness Aram I will deliver a public lecture on the challenges facing the Churches in the Middle East — an event that promises to be of considerable interest to all those who follow the fortunes of Eastern Christianity.
That all of this should occur on the very day Leo XIV offers the world the first written word of his universal magisterium is, in all likelihood, not a circumstance devoid of meaning. The attention to the dignity of the human person — which in the encyclical Magnifica humanitas finds expression in the challenge of artificial intelligence — discovers in the fate of the Christians of the East, and of the Armenian people in particular, one of its most eloquent and most dramatic historical proofs.
Carlo Coppola
