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Garo Paylan, an Armenian member of the Turkish Parliament representing the Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP), has opposed the decision of the Turkish authorities to reinstate Archbishop Ateshian as the Vicar General of the Armenian Patriarchate of Istanbul.

“The government used intrigues to appoint the enforcer [referring to Aram Ateshian] in the Patriarchate. But we do not accept this enforcer. We want to elect our patriarch,” Paylan wrote on Twitter.

Earlier the governor of Istanbul officially rejected Archbishop Karekin Bekchian’s March 2017 election as the Armenian Patriarchal Locum Tenens. Afterwards, the Patriarchate's Religious Council announced its decision to reinstate Archbishop Aram Ateshian as the Vicar General.

In a farewell letter, Archbishop Karekin Bekchian said that after living abroad for more than 50 years, he returned Turkey for a single purpose of organizing elections for a new patriarch. Bekchian noted that he was deeply mistaken to think that it would be enough to procced with faith and conscience in this matter for the people and church to succeed in the patriarchal elections.

Ermeni Patrikhanesine kayyım atamak için “ibretlik entrikalar çevrildi”.
Kayyımı kabul etmiyoruz!
Patriğimizi seçmek istiyoruz! https://t.co/RMyuVkHnNN

— Garo Paylan (@GaroPaylan) February 13, 2018