Armenian Patriarchate of Constantinople to elect interim leader

16:13,

YEREVAN, JUNE 18, ARMENPRESS. The Armenian Patriarchate of Constantinople will elect a Patriarchal Locum Tenens on June 27th, the synod has decided. The synod’s meeting was chaired by Archbishop Aram Atesian, the Patriarchal Vicar.

On March 8, Patriarch Mesrob II died in an Istanbul hospital after being more than a decade in a dementia-related coma.

The patriarchate has requested the Turkish government to allow holding elections of a new patriarch, a requirement by law.

An election of a new patriarch will most likely take place after the June 27 locum tenens election.

Edited and translated by Stepan Kocharyan

Emil Lazarian

“I should like to see any power of the world destroy this race, this small tribe of unimportant people, whose wars have all been fought and lost, whose structures have crumbled, literature is unread, music is unheard, and prayers are no more answered. Go ahead, destroy Armenia . See if you can do it. Send them into the desert without bread or water. Burn their homes and churches. Then see if they will not laugh, sing and pray again. For when two of them meet anywhere in the world, see if they will not create a New Armenia.” - WS