The President of Armenia and VP Joe Biden were guests of honor at Washington’s National Cathedral at a service last week commemorating the “Holy Martyrs of the Armenian Genocide.”

The President of Armenia and US Vice President Joe Biden were guests of honor at Washington’s National Cathedral at a service last week commemorating the “Holy Martyrs of the Armenian Genocide.” On 7 May 2015 the Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church of the USA, the Most Rev. Katharine Jefferts Schori welcomed Armenian President Serzh Sarkisian, Vice President Biden, Olav Fykse Tveit, General Secretary of the World Council of Churches, and Ignatius Aphrem II Patriarch of Antioch to the ecumenical prayer service led by the leaders of the Armenian churches: Karekin II, Catholicos of All Armenians, and Aram I Keshishian, Catholicos of the Great House of Cilicia. The prayer service comes amidst political wrangling in the United States after President Barack Obama backed away from a campaign promise to recognize the mass killings and deportation of 1.5 million Armenian Christians by the Ottoman Turks in 1915 as “genocide”. In his sermon Aram said: “I believe that, according to teaching of all religions, justice is a gift of God. And rejection of justice is a sin against God. Justice is also the core of human rights.” While the United States federal government does not officially recognize the mass killings of Armenians as genocide out of deference to the sensitivities of Turkey, 44 U.S. states have endorsed the call by Armenia for Turkey to acknowledge its responsibility for the massacres and admit to the crime of genocide.