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ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - In the center of the Iraqi capital, Baghdad, the Armenian Orthodox community in Iraq celebrated the ordination of a new bishop on Monday for the first time in over four decades.
Archimandrite Oshagan Gulgulian, head of the Armenian Orthodox Church in Iraq, told Rudaw that he was "very grateful" for his election as the new Armenian Orthodox community bishop in Iraq.
“After 42 years, it was the first time that an election took place, … because Iraq was facing some difficulties and there were not many candidates as well,” he added.
Gulgulian stressed his commitment to the Armenian Orthodox community's spiritual principles and values while calling for peace among all Iraqi religious and ethnic groups.
The new bishop of Armenian Lebanese origin was elected among three other candidates to lead Iraq’s Armenian Orthodox community.
“We try our best to keep up with the pace of developments in life and in general, and we thought that in the presence of a young bishop, new ideas would certainly be introduced,” Karpet Kaustyan, chairman of the Central Administrative Committee of the Armenian Orthodox Church in Iraq, told Rudaw on Monday.
Until 2004, Basra was home to around 350 Armenian families. Today, fewer than 150 families still live there. Similarly, only three of the 120 families who used to live in Mosul in the past, remain in the city today, and the number of Armenians in Baghdad has plummeted from 6,000 to 500. This is all due to successive wars, instability, and violence against the ethnic minority group.
Armenians consider themselves as being prevented from exercising their rights and they have repeatedly called on the ruling authorities of Iraq to assign them a seat in parliament, like other minority groups already have.
Unlike other parts of Iraq, the Kurdistan Region has become a safe haven for Armenians and other minority groups who have fled displacement and violence in other parts of the country.
The Constitution of the Kurdistan Region recognizes Armenians as an ethnic component, provides the right to mother-tongue education in the Armenian language, and reserves one seat in parliament for Armenians.
There are six Armenian churches in the Kurdistan Region - four in Duhok province, one in Erbil and one in Kirkuk.
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