Almost exactly one hundred years ago, on 25 November 1921, Catholicos Sahak II was forced by the Ottoman-Turkish authorities to leave the Armenian Church’s centuries-old Catholicosate in Sis, Cilicia, Turkey. The Catholicos kissed the Gospel on the altar of St. Sophia Cathedral for the last time, handed over the keys of the Catholicosate to the officers of the Turkish Army, and, together with his clergy, left for Jerusalem. From Jerusalem, he went to Aleppo, then Cyprus, and finally, in 1930, established the Catholicosate in Antelias, Lebanon.
In faithfulness to the sacred legacy of Catholicos Sahak II, in 2015, on the centenary of the Armenian Genocide, we filed a lawsuit at the Constitutional Court of Turkey, claiming the return of the historical Catholicosate of Sis to its legitimate owner, the Armenian Catholicosate of Cilicia. The lawsuit is ongoing.
ARAM I
Catholicos of the Great House of Cilicia