Armenian Apostolic Church Canonizes 1.5 Million People

[Era Might]

Not sure what to think about this.

In a somber pageant of color and ritual, Armenia’s national church Thursday honored the victims of the Ottoman Empire’s deportations and massacres of a century ago by canonizing them en masse as martyrs.

In Istanbul, meanwhile, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan chided Armenia and the Armenian diaspora for focusing only on their losses during what he called “a relocation of the Armenian population to the farther parts of the empire.”

“Thirty million people died, and why are you highlighting the Armenian citizens?” he said. “More than 4 million Muslims died during the war.”

Karekin II, who carries the titles supreme patriarch and catholicos of all Armenians, said that by honoring the victims of a century ago, “the church only recognizes what happened: that is genocide.”

“During the dreadful years of the genocide of the Armenians, millions of our people were uprooted and massacred in a premeditated manner, passed through fire and sword, tasted the bitter fruits of torture and sorrow,” he said in the open-air ceremony at Edjmiadzin, the see of the Armenian Apostolic Church, just outside the capital of Yerevan. It was the first canonization in the ancient church in four centuries

Historians say that at least 1 million Armenians perished in the deportations and massacres that took place during World War I in the waning days of the Ottoman Empire. Erdogan said the number that Armenians cite, 1.5 million, is an exaggeration.

"The numbers used by Armenians have no basis and no reason,” he told a crowd of more than 1,000 as he concluded a “peace summit” to mark the centenary of the Allied landing at the head of the Dardanelles Strait during the war.

Then he added, “We feel sorry and sad for Armenians who died in World War I.”

http://www.latimes.com/world/la-fg-armenia-sainthood-20150424-story.html

[Gabriela]

I can definitely see why that would make you uncomfortable.