YEREVAN. - During his address at the Armenian Presidential Palace on Friday, Pope Francis used the word “genocide”to describe the atrocities committed against the Armenians in the Ottoman Empire in 1915.

Referring to the mass served in Saint Peter’s Basilica last year, the Pope said: “The occasion was the commemoration of the centenary of the Metz Yeghérn, the “Great Evil” that struck your people and caused the death of a vast multitude of persons.  Sadly, that tragedy, that genocide, was the first of the deplorable series of catastrophes of the past century, made possible by twisted racial, ideological or religious aims that darkened the minds of the tormentors even to the point of planning the annihilation of entire peoples.”