Documents concerning the Armenian Genocide were not published in the exhibition of Vatican archives?

Vatican archives documenting centuries of European history, on public display for the first time included documents relating to the Armenian Genocide.

Head of the Vatican archives Sergio Pagano said in an interview that the 2012 exhibition would present a book with documents and information on the Armenian Genocide, published as a separate volume.

Pagano’s announcement was made during the presentation of the 'Lux in Arcana' exhibition, which opened on February in Rome to show one of the world’s most important collection of papers, with documents from the 8th century to the 20th century. Lined-up, they would cover 85 kilometres.

With regards to the Armenian genocide, “when I read documents about the torture practices used by the Turks against the Armenians, I feel an irrepressible sense of pain and horror,” Mr Pagano said.

According to the prefect, some of the papers describe how Turkish soldiers “bet and played dice to guess the sex of a child before stabbing him or her with a bayonet after extracting them out of the womb.”

Though some media spread information that in the exhibition lasting till this September have already been exhibited also documents concerning Armenian Genocide, LURER.com has got information that those documents were not published.

We tried to clarify the information from RA Ministry of Diaspora. During the talk with us, the ministry`s department of public relations and media informed, "Nothing is clear yet. It is not clear what kind of documents these are. The documents are under their responsibility, that is, they do not share with us when they will publish them. They have promised to publish the documents particularly referring to Armenian Genocide. But this is their fair, we have no connection with it. The important thing is that the decision of publishing the material was accepted and probably it would be published part by part. By the way they have opened a museum there where the documents will be presented."

We tried to clarify the information also from Vatican`s 'Lux in Arcana' exhibition`s media department responsible Patricia Brachi, but she did not respond to our query.

It is remarkable that in the official website of the exhibition also no documents are presented over Armenian Genocide.

According to our information, documents on Armenian Genocide were not published in the exhibition for political reasons. It is not excluded that the documents over Genocide were not published upon private request of Armenian side. It is not excluded also that these documents were not exhibited due to Turkish diplomatic efforts. 

To note, RA President Serzh Sargsyan on last Dec. 12 was in Italy for working visit. On the first day of his visit, in Vatican Sargsyan met with His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI. On the same day Armenian president also met with Vatican state secretary Cardinal Bertone Tarchitsio. 

And during this year`s working visit to Italy on Feb. 7-12, RA Diaspora minister Hranush Hakobyan met with Pope of Rome.

To recall, the exhibition of the manuscripts is dedicated to the 400th anniversary of the secret archives. Most of the documents were so far were available only for the scientists.