People attending a canonisation ceremony for the victims of mass killings of Armenians by Ottoman Turks at the open-air altar of Armenia’s main cathedral in Echmiadzin, yesterday. Photo: David Mdzinarishvili/Reuters

The Armenian Apostolic Church yesterday made saints of up to 1.5 million Armenians at an open-air ceremony to commemorate their killing by Ottoman Turks a century ago.

Armenia say the massacres during World War I constitute genocide – a term used this month by Pope Francis. Muslim Turkey accepts many Christian Armenians were killed in partisan fighting during the war, but denies it amounted to genocide.

The ceremony, attended by church leaders and state officials, marked the start of the killings in 1915, and was held outside the 4th century Echmiadzin cathedral in Vagharshapat, 20km from the Armenian capital.

It was the first time in 400 years that the Armenian Apostolic Church had authorised any canonisations.

When the two-hour ceremony ended at the symbolic time of 19.15, bells rang out 100 times, an action to be repeated at Armenian churches around the world.

Armenia, a country of 3.2 million people that was once part of the Soviet Union, wants other countries to recognise the killings as genocide and the debate has long soured its relations with Turkey.

In February, Armenia withdrew from parliament landmark peace accords with Turkey that had only been signed in 2009, setting back US-backed efforts to bury a century of hostility between the neighbours.

President Serzh Sarksyan said on Wednesday he was ready to normalise relations with Turkey, stating that there should be no preconditions in restarting the peace process and would not insist that the Turks accept they had committed genocide.

German President Joachim Gauck yesterday condemned the massacre as “genocide”, a term that the Berlin government had long rejected.