On Thursday, 17 January 2019, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Markos Bolaris received the Head of the Holy Armenian Apostolic Orthodox Church in Greece, Archbishop Khoren Arakelyan, as well as the President of the Armenians of Greece, Artenian Merouzian. The Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs presented to Arakelyan the Ministry of Foreign Affairs' priority for laying down policy principles and forging a strategy for exercising religious and ecclesiastical diplomacy through continuous dialogue on the part of the Ministry with institutional ecclesiastical organisations, theologians, and academicians. He was briefed by the Most Reverend on the history of the establishment, in 1958, (following the separation of the Church established in Armenia from the Holy See of Cilicia in Beirut) of the churches in Greece and the flock of the Holy Armenian Orthodox Apostolic Church. In addition, he was briefed on Mr Arakelyan’s effort to organise a meeting of Armenian youth from Greece and Europe at a camp ground in our country, which he endorsed and expressed the desire to support. The Most Reverend expressed his thanks for the scholarships that Greece provides to young people from Armenia who wish to undertake Theological Studies at Greek Universities and underscored the added value that the provision of scholarships also to graduates of the University of Etchmiadzin, a city where the Mother See of Holy Etchmiadzin is located, would have for the continuous functioning of his Church. The President of the Armenian community estimated that approximately 70,000 citizens of Armenian descent reside in Greece today (both Greeks and non-Greeks.) He praised the reception that the latest wave of Armenian immigrants received in our country, after the fall of the USSR, and hoped that the administrative obstacles that they face, mainly on issues related to integration into the labour market, would be overcome. The Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs stressed his intention to support specific requests that will be sent by his interlocutors.
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