ArmInfo. Aram I, Catholicos of the Great House of Cilicia intends to apply to the European Court for Human Rights (ECHR) on the issue of returning buildings of Catholicosate in Sis.
Aram I stated about this after the Constitutional Court of Turkey rejected discussion of this issue. "6th of December will be an important day for both the Armenian nation and the Armenian Church. This is the first legal step against Turkey after Armenian Genocide of 1915 and results from long and serious contemplations, consultations and study based on international law. I suppose that the time has come to pass from the stage of recognition to compensation. Our demand to return Catholicosate in Sis will be submitted to the ECHR on December 6", Aram I stated in his video message from Lebanon.
At the same time he stressed that this not the demand of the Great House of Cilicia but of the whole Armenian nation. According to him this process should be continued, as it is an issue of justice. "We never forget the Armenian Genocide. Recognition and compensation is our demand, we want justice from the international community", the Catholicos summarized.
The city of Sis (modern-day Kozan, Adana, Turkey) was the center of the Catholicosate of the Great House of Cilicia for more than six centuries, starting in 1293 when the Catholicosate moved from Hromgla to Sis. During the Armenian Genocide, in 1915, the Armenian population in Cilicia was mostly destroyed. The last Catholicos to reside in Sis was Sahak II (Catholicos from 1902 to 1939). In 1921, after renewed massacres of Armenians in Cilicia by Kemalist Turkey, Sahak II, with the surviving Armenian population, fled to find refuge in Syria.