24 October 2015. On Saturday, the one-day conference was held in Antelias with the participation of youth from church organizations and movements in Lebanon. The purpose of the meeting was to discuss the Armenian Genocide and draw lessons for future action by youth.

In his opening speech, His Holiness Aram I congratulated members of the Youth Department for the initiative. He then rejected the notion that religion was a cause of the Armenian Genocide; he said that there is sufficient well-documented evidence that Turkey acted out of its geopolitical interests. The Catholicos concluded that Turkey must not be allowed to continue its politics of denial because “new genocides can be prevented only when earlier atrocities are formally recognized and condemned.”

The two keynote speakers approached the issue from the perspectives of Christianity and Islam. Rev. Dr Paul Haydostyan said that peace was at the root of the Christian message and, therefore, Christians must not remain passive in the face of injustice; Muslim scholar, Dr Muhammed Sammak, then said that Turkey could not have committed such a crime in the name of Islam because Islam has always been and remains against violence.

The conference continued with three presentations followed by workshops on the themes: 1) International law and 100 years of struggle for recognition and restitution; 2) youth advocacy and dialogue in conflict resolution; and 3) the contribution of youth in Genocide prevention.

Dr Michel Jalkh, General Secretary of the Middle East Council of Churches, concluded the conference and called upon the youth to find ways of working together and preventing new genocides in the region.