ANKARA, Turkey – The Turkish foreign ministry on Sunday summoned the Vatican ambassador after Pope Francis referred to an Armenian massacre under the Ottomans a century ago as “genocide.”

Turkey’s official Anadolu Agency said Ambassador Antonio Lucibello was called to the ministry hours after the pontiff made his remarks in a message on the centenary of the massacre in 1915.

Anadolu did not report the ambassador talk with a deputy undersecretary. But Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu tweeted that the “Pope's remarks which are far from historical and legal realities cannot be accepted.”

In a message to Armenians around the world, Pope Francis referred to the Ottoman massacre as the “the first genocide of the 20th century,” quoting a 2001 declaration by Pope John Paul II and the Armenian church.

“A century has passed since that horrific massacre which was a true martyrdom of your people, in which many innocent people died as confessors and martyrs for the name of Christ,” he said at the start of a Mass Sunday in the Armenian Catholic rite in St. Peter's Basilica honoring the centenary.

“Even today, there is not an Armenian family untouched by the loss of loved ones due to that tragedy: it truly was ‘Metz Yeghern,’ the ‘Great Evil,’ as it is known by Armenians,’ the Pope said.

Francis, who has close ties to the Armenian community from his days in Argentina, defended his pronouncement by saying it was his duty to honor the memory of the innocent men, women, children, priests and bishops who were "senselessly" murdered by Ottoman Turks.

"Concealing or denying evil is like allowing a wound to keep bleeding without bandaging it," the pontiff said.

Historians estimate that up to 1.5 million Armenians were killed by Ottoman Turks around the time of World War I, an event widely viewed by genocide scholars as the first genocide of the 20th century.

Turkey, however, refuses to call it a genocide and has insisted that the toll has been inflated, and that those killed were victims of civil war and unrest.

Turkey's embassy to the Holy See canceled a planned news conference for Sunday, presumably after learning that the pope would utter the word "genocide" over its objections.

Several European countries recognize the massacres as genocide, though Italy and the United States, for example, have avoided using the term officially given the importance they place on Turkey as an ally.

Rudaw with AP.