Italy –
Thursday,
Aleppo (Agenzia Fides) – Armenian Catholic Archbishop Boutros Marayati, at the head of the Armenian Catholic community of Aleppo, was appointed Interim Apostolic Administrator of the Armenian Catholic Church, after the death of the Armenian Catholic Patriarch Krikor Bedros Ghabroyan due to illness (see Fides, 26/5/2021).
The news of the appointment was released on the afternoon of Wednesday May 26, by the Secretariat of the Armenian Catholic Patriarchate. The appointment took place on the basis of Article 127 of the Code of Canons of the Eastern Catholic Churches, which states that during the vacancy of the Patriarchal See, the office of Administrator of the Patriarchal Church is assumed by "the eldest Bishop by ordination among the bishops of the Patriarchal Curia or, if there are none, among the Bishops who are members of the permanent Synod".
The main task of the interim Patriarchal Administrator will be to convene the members of the Synod of the Armenian Catholic Church to elect the new Patriarch.
Boutros Marayati, born in Aleppo in February 1948, was ordained a priest in 1971 and in 1990 was consecrated Armenian Catholic Bishop of his hometown. In the long years of the Syrian conflict, he remained alongside the increasingly small Christian communities of Aleppo, a martyr city for a long time a battleground between military forces loyal to President Bashar al Assad and rebel militias, including jihadist militias.
In January 2014, as Apostolic Administrator Sede vacante et ad nutum Sanctae Sedis of the Armenian Catholic eparchy of Kamichlié (Qamishli), Archbishop Marayati disavowed the initiative "Adopt a parish in Syria" launched online by an Armenian Catholic Syrian priest as a project to raise funds for the suffering Christian communities in Syria. On that occasion (see Fides, 11/1/2014), Archbishop Marayati made it known through Agenzia Fides that the priest promoter of the initiative had "no faculty or authorization to organize fundraising in the name and in favor of the parishes or of the Christian schools of Syria". (GV) (Agenzia Fides, 27/5/2021)