His Holiness Aram I, Catholicos of the Great House of Cilicia, is based in Antelias, Lebanon, and speaks Armenian, English, Arabic and French.

Neil Bane and Aram Pehlivanian negotiated this transaction.

Earlier, during a meeting of the WCC central committee, Catholicos Aram I of the Armenian Apostolic Church, the committee's moderator, suggested that although violence is "evil," it might be an "unavoidable alternative, a last resort" for people living "under conditions of injustice and oppression, where all means of non-violent actions are used up.