ArmInfo. A petition has been launched on change.org with the demand that Archbishop Aram Ateshyan, Patriarch of Constantinople Patriarchate of the Armenian Catholic Church, should resign.
The petition has already been signed by hundreds of representatives of the Armenian community of Turkey. The initiators of the petition accuse Ateshyan of sowing discord between the community and the church, disrespecting the history of the community, as well as selling off church property. The initiators of the petition demand not only the removal of Ateshyan, but also the deprivation of his dignity.
To recall, on October 26, 2016, the Patriarchate of Constantinople of the AAC announced its decision to recognize the current patriarch Mesrop Mutafyan as incapable. Patriarch Mutafyan has been in a coma since 2008 and, in fact, does not act like a patriarch. These powers are exercised in his place by Archbishop Aram Atashyan, who was elected not by the community, but by the state. That is, it implies the election of a new patriarch.
To recall, on March 15, 2017, elections of the locum tenens of the Constantinople Diocese of the AAC were held. The decision of this was made by the Catholicos of All Armenians Garegin II, after in February of the same year the Istanbul Armenians addressed with an open letter to the Catholicos asking to intervene in the activities of Ateshyan. The letter emphasized that the Patriarchate, designed to solve the problems of the community, on the contrary creates them. They also called on the Catholicos to ensure the resignation of Ateshyan, to promote the organization of open, transparent and impartial elections to the Patriarch of Constantinople, the diocese of the ACC. After the election of the locum tenens within ten days, that is, before March 25, elections for the Initiative structure were to be organized and held, which in turn, in six months, was supposed to organize the election of the patriarch. However, after the election of the locum tenens of the Diocese of Constantinople by 23 votes out of 34, Archbishop Bekchyan won a victory, Aram Ateshyan refused to leave his post. Moreover, Ateshyan, the incumbent governor, submitted a letter to the Istanbul mayor's office, stating that the past locator elections were not legal and that he was the only one who legally holds this position. At the same time, Ateshian stressed that he does not intend to leave his post. After these actions of Ateshyan, Garegin Bekchyan made a statement in which he stressed that Ateshyan is obliged to respect the agreements reached during the meeting with Catholicos of All Armenians Garegin the second to refuse his post after the election of the locum tenens and leave his post.
On June 28, 2017, Archbishop Aram Ateshyan was nevertheless removed from his post as viceroy of the Constantinople Patriarchate of the Armenian Apostolic Church. And in May 2017, the Armenian community of Istanbul began collecting signatures against Archbishop Ateshyan, demanding to deprive him of his dignity and excommunicate him. The negative attitude of the Armenian community to the archbishop is explained by the fact that on June 7, 2016, the archbishop sent a letter to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in connection with the resolution on the Armenian Genocide adopted by the German parliament on June 2, in particular: "We, as the Armenian community of Turkey, express our regret about the decision of the Bundestag. " After this incident in the Armenian parliament, they stated that it was necessary to secure the resignation and even deprivation of the dignity of the archbishop by all means, calling his letter "an unprecedented example of betrayal and shame in the history of the Armenian people."
However, this situation was not resolved, and already on February 9, 2018, the spiritual council of the Constantinople Patriarchate of the AAC during the emergency meeting decided to keep Aram Ateshyan the deputy of the patriarch of the Patriarchate of Constantinople. The Patriarchate called for a return to the position before the October 26, 2016 religious meeting.