Armenian govt strips Armenian Church of ownership rights to church lands

The Mother See of Holy Etchmiadzin – the main spiritual center of the Armenian Apostolic Church. Photo: Wikipedia

A commission of the National Assembly of Armenia on territorial administration, local self-government, agriculture, and environmental protection has approved at first reading amendments to the Land Code that provide for ending the transfer of land for churches into Church ownership, ArmInfo reports.

According to the draft law, land plots intended for the construction and maintenance of churches will no longer be transferred into the ownership of the Armenian Apostolic Church. Instead, agreements on free use will be concluded with the Church for land plots that remain in state and municipal ownership.

The initiator of the amendments is the Ministry of Territorial Administration and Infrastructure of Armenia. At the proposal of Minister Asatur Vardanyan, the provision allowing the gratuitous transfer of state and municipal land into the ownership of the Armenian Apostolic Church is to be repealed.

At the same time, land plots previously transferred remain the property of the Church. New plots, if the law is adopted, will be provided to it exclusively on the basis of free use. The government states that the changes are intended to streamline legal relations between the state and the Church.

As the deputy minister explained, the draft provides for the repeal of Part 2 of Article 64 of the Land Code, since the existing Article 75 already allows land plots from state and municipal ownership to be granted to the Armenian Apostolic Church for free use without a competitive procedure.

Earlier, the UOJ reported that the Armenian Church had filed a lawsuit against a former cleric for refusing to vacate a church.

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