Turkey has summoned the Vatican's ambassador in Ankara after Pope Francis described the mass killings of Armenians during the First World War as "genocide".
The Pope made the comments during a mass in Saint Peter's Basilica to mark the centenary of the Ottoman Turk murders of Armenians.
He said: "In the past century our human family has lived through three massive and unprecedented tragedies.
"The first, which is widely considered 'the first genocide of the 20th century', struck your own Armenian people."
The 78-year old head of the Roman Catholic Church had been under pressure to use the word genocide to describe the bloodshed, despite the risk of alienating an important ally in the fight against Islamist militants.
While many historians describe the events between 1915 and 1917 as the 20th century's first genocide, Turkey strongly denies the accusation.
Armenians say up to 1.5 million of their people were slaughtered as the Ottoman Empire fell apart, and have long sought to win international recognition of the massacres as genocide.
Turkey argues that 300,000 to 500,000 Armenians and as many Turks died in the civil war when Armenians rose up against their Ottoman rulers and sided with invading Russian troops.
According to Turkish media, the foreign ministry will release an official response to Francis' remarks later.
The Pontiff said the other two genocides of the 20th century were "perpetrated by Nazism and Stalinism".
He added: "And more recently there have been other mass killings, like those in Cambodia, Rwanda, Burundi and Bosnia. It seems that humanity is incapable of putting a halt to the shedding of innocent blood."
Armenia's President Serzh Sargsyan also celebrated the mass, which included elements of the Armenian Catholic rite.
Francis proclaimed a 10th-century Armenian monk a "Doctor of the Church" - making Saint Gregory just one of 36 saintly theologians whose writings are considered to hold key insights into the Catholic faith.
The Vatican has a long history of support for the Armenians, with John Paul II using the word genocide in a joint statement signed with the Armenian patriarch in 2000.
He said: "The Armenian genocide, which began the century, was a prologue to horrors that would follow."
But it provoked outrage in Turkey, and a year later during a trip to Armenia John Paul II avoided using the term, instead choosing the Armenian expression "Metz Yeghern" - meaning "Great Evil".
Last week, TV star Kim Kardashian, her husband Kanye West, daughter North and sister Khloe, visited Armenia to celebrate her family's roots and mark the centenary.
Kardashian, whose ancestors emigrated to the US from an area that now lies in Turkey, is reportedly making a documentary about the Armenian WW1 killings.
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