Rubinyan says bishop Saroyan still holds title

PanARMENIAN.Net - Deputy Speaker of the National Assembly Ruben Rubinyan, responding to the defrocking of Bishop Gevorg Saroyan, former head of the Diocese of Masis, declared that Saroyan remains both a bishop and the head of the diocese. He made this statement in a Facebook post.

"Ktrich Nersisyan is not a Catholicos; he is just a typical opposition politician and the brother of a KGB agent. Therefore, he cannot make any decision about a virtuous and true clergyman," Rubinyan wrote.

In a Facebook video message, Hayk Mamijanyan, head of the I Have Honor parliamentary faction, claimed that the January 26 resolution adopted by the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), titled “Progress of the Assembly's Monitoring Procedure,” includes three key points the authorities are not addressing.

"The first is that the report clearly states what is happening now is a state attack on the Church. That’s written outright. So the tales Prime Minister Pashinyan is telling—that this isn’t an attack on the Church—fall apart even within this document. It explicitly notes a confrontation between the state and the Church," Mamijanyan said.