YEREVAN, APRIL 30, ARMENPRESS. Nearly two months since the death of Mesrob II, the synod of the Armenian Patriarchate of Constantinople said it has made a decision on April 29 to request the Istanbul Governorate permission to organize the election of a new patriarch.

The synod also decided that acting Patriarch Archbishop Aram Atesyan will be in charge of the election process, the patriarchate said in a news release.

“It has been decided to apply to the Istanbul Governorate without delay,” the synod’s decision said.

Mesrob II died at the age of 62 on March 8. He was serving as patriarch since 1998. Since 2008, Mesrob II was hospitalized in a dementia-related coma. The incapacitation led to the synod electing Atesyan as acting patriarch in 2010.

Despite the Turkish-Armenian community’s requests to organize new elections, the Turkish government refused to allow it citing the 1863 Constitutional law that permits patriarchal elections only after the death of the patriarch.

In 2017, however, the synod attempted to initiative the election by electing Archbishop Karekin Bekcian as patriarchal locum tenens and setting up a steering committee to organize the process. However, after months of preparations, the government of Turkey declared the synod’s decisions invalid.

Now, after the official mourning period for Mesrob II has ended, the process is expected to begin.

Edited and translated by Stepan Kocharyan