SUPREME PATRIARCH AND CATHOLICOS OF ALL ARMENIANS TO VISIT POPE

VATICAN CITY, DEC 9, 1996 (VIS) - The Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity today released the program for the December 10-14 visit to the Holy Father and the Church of Rome of the Supreme Patriarch and Catholicos of all Armenians, Karekin I.

After arriving in Rome tomorrow, Catholicos Karekin I will go to the St. Martha Residence in the Vatican. He will lunch there and in the afternoon will visit the Vatican basilica. At 6:30 p.m. he will have a meeting with the Pope. Wednesday the 11th, at 10:50 a.m. a brief greeting by the Holy Father is scheduled, and at 11 the patriarch will attend the general audience. In the afternoon he will go to St. Paul's-Outside-The-Walls where he will meet with the Benedictine monastic community. Later he will encounter young people from the diocese of Rome at St. Mary in Trastevere.

Thursday he will visit the basilicas of St. John Lateran in the morning and St. Mary Major in the afternoon. At 5:30 p.m. he will close a symposium dedicated to him at the Pontifical Oriental Institute. On Friday, December 13 he will visit the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, after which there will be a private meeting with the Holy Father, later extended to the 16 members of his entourage. A joint declaration will be signed.

Saturday he will visit the Vatican Apostolic Library and Sistine and Pauline Chapels.
.../VISIT CATHOLICOS PATRIARCH/KAREKIN I VIS 961209 (240)