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Groong.org (18 May 2023) 

The Chancellery of the Armenian Patriarchate of Jerusalem announced on May 6 that earlier that day “Father Baret Yeretsian was defrocked by the unanimous vote of the Synod of the Patriarchate by the order of Archbishop Nourhan Manougian, the Armenian Patriarch of Jerusalem.”

The Patriarchate stated that the 77-year-old Fr. Baret was “defrocked for his disloyalty towards the rules and procedures of the Holy See and especially the series of frauds and deceptions he had committed regarding the contract of the ‘Goverou Bardez’ property.” He was declared to be a layperson by his baptismal name, Khachik Yeretsian.

The Patriarchate did not provide further details regarding the alleged “frauds and deceptions committed” by Father Baret. The reference to the ‘Goverou Bardez’ (Garden of Cows) was to the contract that the Patriarch along with Fr. Baret and one other clergyman had signed last year to lease a large tract of land owned by the Patriarchate in Jerusalem to an Australian-Jewish businessman for 99 years, on which a luxury hotel is to be built.

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