Roman Catholic Archbishop Jose Gomez will host a multi-denominational prayer service in Los Angeles to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the killings of an estimated 1.5 million Armenians under the Ottoman Empire, the Associated Press reports.
The Los Angeles archdiocese says Mayor Eric Garcetti will be the keynote speaker at the service Tuesday evening at the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels.
The service will include church leaders from around the state and feature a procession of Armenian children carrying a lantern into the cathedral.
The event comes days after Pope Francis described the killings a century ago as “the first genocide of the 20th century.”
Turkey denies the killings were genocide and contends those who died were victims of civil war and unrest. Turkey also insists the death toll has been inflated.
