On December 2, by the Patriarchal directive of His Holiness Karekin II, Supreme Patriarch and Catholicos of All Armenians, Fr. Tadeh Takhmazyan, spiritual pastor of the Talin region, was declared defrocked. The Mother See reports this.
The directive was based on the report of the Administrative Council of the Aragatsotn Diocese and the conclusion of the Mother See’s Commission for Awards and Disciplinary Matters of the Armenian Apostolic Holy Church, with the following grounds stating that Fr. Tadeh:
a) discredited the Armenian Church and the clergy, including by spreading a public defamatory statement,
b) carried out anti-church actions by participating in the transgression of a person who had been previously defrocked,
c) arbitrarily omitted during liturgies the part where the names of the Catholicos of All Armenians and the Diocesan Primate are commemorated, thereby effectively denying the canonical order, placing himself outside the Church and, in essence, adhering to a schismatic movement,
d) demonstrated disobedience to ecclesiastical authority։
The defrocked cleric will henceforth be classified among the laity under the name Aramayis Takhmazyan.