Head of the Catholicos Hovhannes Odznetsi Foundation, Vanush Shermazanyan, advocates raising no scandal around restoration of the St. Mary Church of Odzun (Lori region).
He said at today's press conference that the media reports saying that the restoration of the church has been suspended have nothing to do with the reality. According to the media reports, the reason of suspension was the fact that Architect Misha Hakobyan, the author of restoration project, allegedly refused to control the process of restoration because he had not received the 450 thsd AMD he was to receive for 3 months.
Shermazanyan said that over the three months of 2013 no restoration work was carried out, as this work cannot be done at the temperature below 8 degrees. He said that one should not pay for the work that was not done. Shermazanyan added that the problem was restricted not to Misha Hakobyan but to Servet LLC, which was carrying out the follow-on. Thus, there are no obstacles for continuing the restoration work launched in April, except the lack of control over the compliance of the repair and restoration work with the reference design.
To note, the St. Mary Church of Odzun (VI c.) is being restored according to the Memorandum signed in summer 2012 between the Armenian Apostolic Church, Armenian Culture Ministry and the Catholicos Hovhannes Odznetsi Foundation. The total project costs 320 mln AMD. The restoration will be completed in October 2014.