YEREVAN, APRIL 12, ARMENPRESS. Turkey has summoned the Vatican's ambassador in Ankara following Pope Francis’ statement regarding the Armenian Genocide. “Armenpress” reports about this citing Reuters.

Turkey, which has yet to make an official statement on Pope Francis' comments, summoned the ambassador to protest over the description of the Armenian massacres as "genocide", the official said, declining to be identified.

Previously it was reported that in his sermon during the Divine Liturgy dedicated to the 100th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide offered in St. Peter’s Basilica, Pope Francis called the mass killings and massacres of the Armenian people in the Ottoman Turkey in 1915 a Genocide. He said that the slaughter of the Armenians was the first genocide of the 20th century.

Among other things, Pope Francis said the Armenian killings were the first of three "massive and unprecedented" genocides that was followed by the Holocaust and Stalinism. He said others had followed, including in Cambodia, Rwanda, Burundi and Bosnia.

The Pope welcomed the President of the Republic of Armenia Serzh Sargsyan, the Supreme Patriarch and Catholicos of All Armenians His Holiness Karekin II, the Catholicos of the Great House of Cilicia Aram I and the Catholicos Patriarch of the House of Cilicia Nerses Petros XIX, who attended the liturgy.

Pope Francis also honored the Armenian community at the start of the Mass by pronouncing a 10th-century Armenian mystic, St. Gregory of Narek, a doctor of the church. Only 35 people have been given the title, which is reserved for those whose writings have greatly served the universal church.