Զաւէն Մսըրլեան2025-10-172025-10-171999Մսըրլեան, Զ., «Բենեդիկտոս ԺԵ․ Պապը Մեծ եղեռնը», «Հայկազեան հայագիտական հանդէս», 1999, Պէյրութ, էջ 141-154https://haigrepository.haigazian.edu.lb/handle/123456789/820In his telegram of April 7, 1915, Catholicos Gevorg V of All Armenians asked the President of the U.S.A., Woodrow Wilson, the King of Italy, Victor Emmanuel III, the Foreign Minister of Russia, Sergei Sazonov, King George V of England, and the President of France, Raymond Poincaré, to show “their support to the Armenian nation through their embassies by influencing the neutral states to preempt the cruelties, systematic massacres and organized Turko-Kurdish destructions in Ottoman Armenia.” There is no indication, however, of any letter sent by the Armenian Catholicos to the Pope, Benedict XV. However, at that time, Monsignor Dolci, the papal nuncio in Constantinople, was providing the Vatican with continuous reports of the Armenian atrocities. The Vatican commanded Monsignor Dolci to contact the German and Austrian embassies in Constantinople and the Ottoman government, urging them to stop the “barbarian persecution” of the Armenians. The requests were answered by pledges from the Ottoman government, but in practice the latter continued its plan against the Armenians. On September 15, 1915, the Pope sent a letter in his own handwriting asking the Ottoman Sultan to interfere in support of the Armenians. Later on, when the Turks resumed their attacks on the Armenians, especially in the areas which had been reintegrated into the Ottoman Empire by the Brest-Litovsk Agreement, the Pope sent a second letter to the Ottoman Sultan on March 12, 1918, asking his kingly grace for the Armenians. The author of the article stresses, however, that these letters could not have changed the course of the events because the Sultan himself had turned into a figurehead while the real power in the Empire was in the hands of the leaders of the Committee of Union and Progress.