On Tuesday, April 27, His Holiness Aram I, accompanied by clergy of the Cilician brotherhood, visited the Birds’ Nest Orphanage in Byblos and presided over a requiem service for Maria Jacobsen, the Danish missionary who founded the institution in 1922.
Following the service, His Holiness Aram I offered his thoughts on the occasion, saying that the aim of his visit was to pay due respect to the memory of Ms. Jacobsen and pray for her soul on behalf of thousands of Armenian Genocide orphans she had rescued and mothered. His Holiness reminded those present of Jacobsen’s message to the orphans: “Do not forget your martyrs and their sacred will.”