[0] ARMENIAN PONTIFF VISITS MONTEBELLO.

Byline: Tracy Garcia Staff Writer

MONTEBELLO - Christianity is a fundamental part of Joanne Yaghdjian's teen-age life - that's why she and her parents drove up from San Diego on Saturday to see the holiest figure in the Armenian Church on his first U.S. pontifical tour.

``It's really exciting,'' said Yaghdjian, 17, as she waited for His Holiness Karekin II, supreme patriarch and catholicos of all Armenians, to visit the Armenian Martyrs Memorial Monument at Bicknell Park in Montebello.

``To me, his visit is about unifying Armenians,'' Yaghdjian said. ``It's such a big culture, and there are so many divisions, but this just brings everyone together.''

Karekin's appearance at the Montebello monument was his fifth event since arriving Thursday in Los Angeles, his first stop on a tour celebrating 1,700 years of Christianity in Armenia.

More than 1 million people of Armenian descent live in Southern California - the highest concentration outside the Armenian capital of Yerevan, organizers said.

Karekin, whose rank in the Armenian Church is equivalent to that of Roman Catholic Pope John Paul II, was greeted Saturday by hundreds of students from private Armenian schools and the Armenian Christian Youth Organization, as well as local community and church leaders.

The monument, built in 1968 and maintained in part by the city, honors the 1.5 million victims of the Armenian Genocide in 1915 under the Turkish Ottoman Empire. It remains the only such memorial on public land in North America.

Karekin spoke to the crowd in Armenian and blessed the monument as followers sang and chanted.

For Mother's Day, Karekin II will conduct a public Badarak - or divine liturgy - at 10 a.m. today at the Hollywood Bowl.