On the evening of Tuesday, April 22, 2015, Metropolitan Tikhon and his entourage, along with members of the numerous other Church delegations, visited a Church-run youth center in Yerevan, Armenia, where specialized after-school tutoring in some 180 subjects covering humanities, science, arts, national crafts, music, technology and a wide range of sports is offered. His Holiness, Armenian Catholicos-Patriarch Karekin II, led the tour, pointing out that the church in Armenia has experienced a major rebirth since the collapse of the Soviet Union. In fact, the room now used to teach weaving had once been the classroom in which courses in atheism had been taught. The tour ended with an extraordinary display of talent as the students sang, danced, juggled, and performed artistic feats of gymnastics.
Among the heads of Church delegations who attended the event were His Holiness, Pope Tawadros II of the Coptic Orthodox Church; His Holiness, Patriarch Ignatius Aphrem II of the Syriac Orthodox Church; His Eminence, Metropolitan Rastislav of the Orthodox Church of the Czech Lands and Slovakia; His Eminence, Metropolitan Naum of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church; and Anglican Bishop Richard Chartres of London, who is responsible for relations with the Orthodox Churches.
Metropolitan Tikhon and the OCA delegation are in Armenia at the invitation of Catholicos-Patriarch Karekin II in conjunction with the commemoration of the 100th Anniversary of the Armenian Genocide.
