HistorySpecial Reports
On the Passing of Archbishop Mesrob Mutafyan: ‘A decade-long goodbye for a journey cut short’
Patriarch Mesrob Mutafyan was one of the most courageous, principled and forward-looking church leaders in the contemporary history of the Armenian Church. His youth, charisma, strong pastoral and administrative leadership were assets that the community in Turkey needed at the time of his election as Patriarch. However, his decade-long illness made it impossible to fulfil the hopes of a new era in the life of the Armenian community in Turkey.
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Thank you for the article. On September 1, 2009, I received an email from The Patriach. I was very excited. It is such a shame what happened to him. May his memory be eternal. May he rest in the saints
He’s in a place now, where ethnicity and religion evaporate into thin air
Was Mutafian poisoned with something that emulated the symptoms of Alzheimer’s? This dynamic man was quite a threat to the Turkish state.
I doubt he was seen as a threat. However the totality of his illness and the quickness its onslaught is suspicious. Now that he is dead, surely some of the secrecy around his condition can be dispelled. I saw him on Aght’amar island on 29 March 2007. Over the course of a long day he was able to deliver a speech, give numerous press interviews, and walk unaided almost to the summit of the hill overlooking the church. Yet a year later he was so incapacitated by Alzheimer’s disease that he could not walk or communicate.