{"id":131301,"date":"2011-09-30T15:26:27","date_gmt":"2011-09-30T10:26:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.epress.am\/?p=131301"},"modified":"2011-09-30T15:27:58","modified_gmt":"2011-09-30T10:27:58","slug":"istanbuls-armenians-take-issue-of-electing-new-patriarch-to-the-courts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/2011\/09\/30\/istanbuls-armenians-take-issue-of-electing-new-patriarch-to-the-courts.html","title":{"rendered":"Istanbul&#8217;s Armenians Take Issue of Electing New Patriarch to the Courts"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The civil hearings of the lawsuit launched by lawyers from Istanbul&#8217;s Armenian community vs. the Turkish state were held in Istanbul on Sept. 29.<\/p>\n<p>As reported by the Epress.am correspondent in Istanbul, the case refers to the elections of the Armenian Patriarch of Constantinople (Istanbul). Due to the current Patriarch&#8217;s poor health, the Armenian community wanted to elect a new Patriarch. Armenian Patriarch of Constantinople Mesrob Mutafyan has been suffering from dementia for several years and is unable to perform his duties.<\/p>\n<p>In 2 years, the Armenian community gathered 6,000 signatures, appealing to Turkish authorities to organize elections for a new patriarch \u2014 which apparently they are able to do, according to Ottoman rules dating from 1863.<\/p>\n<p>The Turkish state denied this request, stating that as long as Mesrob II remains alive, a new patriarch cannot be elected.<\/p>\n<p>As a result, the Patriarchate electoral committee decided to take the issue to court to assert their right to elect a new patriarch. The first hearings took place yesterday with the presence of several Armenian attorneys. Spokesperson for the attorneys Sebuh Aslangil said that&#8217;s a pity that they are forced to take the issue up in court but the community needs to elect a new patriarch.<\/p>\n<p>The committee of Armenian attorneys have declared that they&#8217;re against Turkey&#8217;s intervention. They are currently awaiting the court&#8217;s ruling.<\/p>\n<!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on the_content --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on the_content -->","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The civil hearings of the lawsuit launched by lawyers from Istanbul&#8217;s Armenian community vs. the Turkish state were held in&#8230;<!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on get_the_excerpt --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on get_the_excerpt --><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":131095,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tstyn_error":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[26112,32885,10933,32884,32886,10222],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/131301"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=131301"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/131301\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/131095"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=131301"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=131301"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=131301"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}