Catholicos of the Great House of Cilicia Aram I has arrived in Yerevan by a special flight to participate in a service canonizing up to 1.5 million Armenians massacred in the Ottoman Empire, ARKA reports.

The service will be held Thursday, April 23 evening in Armenia's main church, Etchmiadzin, a 4th-century building believed to be the Christian world's oldest cathedral. After the ceremony to be led by Catholicos of All Armenians, Karekin II, bells will chime in Armenian churches across the world and a minute of silence will be observed.

In canonizing the Genocide victims, "the Church only recognizes what happened: that is, the Genocide," Karekin II said ahead of the event.

Catholicos Aram I has brought to Armenia remains of the victims of the Genocide, which were kept in the chapel of the Holy Martyrs in the Great House of Cilicia in Lebanon. Aram I is accompanied by a delegation of bishops and archimandrites.