PART 4 - PROJECT 2 - COURSEWORK
The Turkish persecution against Armenian-Christians is a story of which all of us, Western Europeans and non-Armenians, have always heard and always felt like a distant story, which is lost in the distance that separates the East from the West.
In reality the Armenian people, exiled, spread throughout the world and an important community settled in Venice.
The Island of San Lazzaro is located in the central lagoon, close to the Lido, about two kilometers from Venice. The history of the island is intertwined with that of the Armenian people since 1717. In this year the island was donated perpetually by the Senate of the Republic of Venice to the Armenians.
After reading the following text, I was inspired to visit the island of San Lazzaro degli Armeni, and I was able to visit the monastery and take some photographs, which I inserted into the text.
ARMENIANS
The love of Don Orione for the martyr people
July 12, 1942, was an unforgettable day.
Bishop Egisto Melchiorri consecrated a group of Orionine priests. Two of them are Armenians. Don Flavio Peloso talks about the Armenian Clerics with Don Orione. Don Pietro Stefani remembers that joyous celebration of the Church.
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It was Mons. Br. Cirillo J. Zohrabian, on the advice of Senator E. Schiaparelli, who in 1924 entrusted the Orionine Institute of Rhodes with a group of orphans from the terrible Turkish persecution against Armenian Christians.
Eight of those orphans later showed a vocation to the priesthood. At the wish of Don Orione, those eight young people arrived in Italy, on 3 July 1928. Don Orione himself was waiting for them.....
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Don Orione celebrated the dressing of 7 of these young people on April 4, 1929.
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"The sacred habit was according to the Armenian custom, with a red band. He told us all his joy - this time it is Giovanni Dellalian to remember - for a group of Armenian clerics who were beginning to realize his desire to bring back into the Congregation the universality of the Roman Church rites and that sense of catholicity, of which he had full the spirit".
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From that period another episode is recalled which reveals the "spirit of catholicity" of Don Orione. In May 1929, Don Orione wanted to participate with the Armenians in the beatification of the Armenian martyr Komurgian. The particular hearing followed.
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(Abstract from http://www.messaggidonorione.it/articolo.asp?ID=65 accessed on 4/7/2019 and translated by Google Translator from Italian to English)