Letter: Avoid Mention at All Costs - 1999

Avoid Mention At All Costs

Letter to the Editor by C.K. Garabed

Published in the Armenian Reporter International

August 28, 1999

Dear Editor:

On Sunday, August 8, 1999, A Special Requiem and Program in Memory of His Holiness Karekin I, Catholicos and Supreme Patriarch of All Armenians, took place at St. Leon Armenian Church in Fair Lawn, New Jersey. A printed handout, prepared for the occasion, reflected the biography of the late Catholicos Karekin I. Contained in that biography were two very remarkable statements, as follows:

“He became The Delegated Representative of the Catholicos Khoren I to the Eastern Diocese of New York (USA) in 1973. He reorganized the dioceses of both New Julfa and New York...”

The fact is that Archbishop Karekin was elected to the office of Prelate of the Prelacy of the Armenian Apostolic Church of America, which was under the administrative jurisdiction of the Holy See of Cilicia, headed at the time by Catholicos Khoren I. Karekin was in no way connected to the Eastern Diocese of New York, and it is unthinkable that Karekin would have reorganized the Diocese of New York at a time when Archbishop Torkom Manoogian was the Primate of the Diocese.

Evidently, “Prelacy” is a dirty word to those who would resort to all sorts of obfuscation to avoid mentioning such a reprehensible term.

C. K. Garabed Teaneck, NJ