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Catholicos of the Great House of Cilicia Aram I will depart for Aleppo, Syria to re-consecrate the Armenian Forty Martyrs Cathedral on March 30, he revealed at the Armenian Catholicosate in Antelias.

“Syria was in crisis over the past seven years. Now Syrian Armenians started the process of their collective rehabilitation,” Aram I said.

As reported earlier, after the restoration the first Divine Liturgy at the Forty Martyrs Cathedral will be celebrated in late March or early April.

The Armenian church was blown up by the Islamic State militants in April 2015.

The restoration of the Forty Martyrs Church was financed by the Armenian community of Aleppo, with some 150,000 people said to have contributed to the repairs.

Before the Syrian civil war, an estimated 250,000 Christians lived in Aleppo, which was home to at least 45 churches. Half of them are currently ruined, pending reconstruction.

During the war, militants of many terrorist groups destroyed Christian monasteries, cathedrals and churches throughout the country, plundering and desecrating Christian shrines.