LET’S SET THE RECORD STRAIGHT AND THEN MOVE AHEAD TOGETHER FOR THE BENEFIT OF OUR CHURCH AND COMMUNITY On June 11th, a second mass e-mail was issued by the same group of individuals who at the recent Diocesan Assembly meeting managed to unseat popular Canadian Primate Bishop Bagrat Galstanian. They do not have the support of the vast majority of people in our community. They again stated their mistaken position that the elections held on May 25th were not affected by Bylaw infractions, that the voice of the people was “of a very low level caliber”, and then went on to falsely accuse Bishop Galstanian and others of “mishandling the [Laval] project and the misuse of funds”. In our first letter issued on June 9th, we clearly stated the details of the Bylaw irregularities that occurred in the weeks leading up to and just before the Diocesan Assembly meeting in May. We have legal opinion that these were definitely Bylaw irregularities. The fact that they were not brought up at the Diocesan Assembly meeting does not change the fact that they are still illegal. Without these irregularities we believe that Bishop Galstanian would have been reelected. We are shocked by the statement made by the leader of this group of individuals, at a meeting on May 25th that we all had in Montreal with a representative of HH Vehapar, that the voice of the people was by “uninformed and ignorant people who will soon forget and go back to their daily lives”. The emotions that are evident in individual writings on the Internet and in Facebook, although occasionally excessive, prove otherwise. We all have the right to disagree with people and to forcefully bring them to task for their actions and inactions, both privately and publicly, and this right can never be denied because we live in a country that values free speech. However the loud and pure voice of the people, as clearly expressed by the more than 4,000 people who signed the petitions, should not be tarnished by the very very few who have used these social media to personally attack some of our clergy with ugly language. We have never condoned such writings. The many accomplishments of Bishop Galstanian during his 10 years in Canada were outlined in our first letter. He strengthened the church in every aspect, he set up Mission Parishes in Calgary and Edmonton, he set up the Hay Doun social services group, he strengthened the Children’s Fund for Armenia, the Canadian Youth Mission to Armenia and the Ararat Summer Camp, and he reestablished the financially successful Canadian Diocese Endowment Fund. Most importantly, he has attracted the youth of our community to actively participate in the church and its activities across Canada. He also successfully led the fundraising activities of the Diocese, and personally generously donated to the Diocese and to its Endowment Fund. His record of accomplishments speaks for itself. What we cannot leave unanswered are the false accusations in their June 11th mass e-mail against the respected and loved Bishop Galstanian and others. These included statements such as Bishop Galstanian being “very intimately and personally involved in the detailed handling of the [Laval] project, financially and otherwise", that "more than a million dollars are simply wasted by the mishandling of the project and the misuse of funds", that in addition to donations "the project has accumulated more than a million dollars in debts, including loans at extravagant interest rates", and that "legal demands by creditors still remain in waiting" and "new bills are dropping every day on the project and there is not a single penny available to pay any of it". At the outset let us restate what we said before, that the Laval project was always under the full control of the Laval Parish Council and the Diocesan Council. At three important milestones (on July 25th 2009, on August 4th 2012, and again on February 16th 2013) their plans and activities were formally presented to and approved by the Diocesan Board of Trustees, whose members included some of the same people who wrote these false accusations in their mass e-mail of June 11th. They appear to be washing their hands of the oversight responsibility that the Diocesan Board of Trustees had on the Laval project, a responsibility that they are mandated to have according to the Bylaws. Bishop Galstanian did not control the building of this new church in Laval, but of course he enthusiastically supported it in every way that he could in keeping with his duty as Primate to work for the growth of our church wherever sufficient Armenian populations live and work in Canada. There were some people in our Montreal community who from the very start opposed the building of a new church in Laval on the mistaken fear that it would compete with our beloved St. Gregory the Illuminator Cathedral in Outremont. It of course would not. By way of comparison, the Antillias church in Laval does not compete with but rather complements the Sourp Hagop church in Montreal, and their two churches are geographically much closer than our two churches would be. The Laval project has experienced difficulties since its initial inception as an idea some 6 years ago. At that time a wealthy donor from Vancouver had pledged to pay 50% of all costs, a pledge that he unexpectedly reneged on a couple of years later. The project was of necessity then downsized, and the architectural plans and permits had to be completely reworked. It received widespread support from our community, especially from the growing Armenian community in Laval, and donations were made which to date total $1,140,000. A significant part of these donations came from some of the same people who have helped us to write this letter, with the rest coming from many people in our community. The outstanding loans at this time total $810,000. Of this, $500,000 is a personal loan from a member of our church, and he is being paid interest exactly equal to the interest that he is paying a Canadian bank from which he borrowed this money. There are other personal loans from other members of our church totaling just over $200,000. And $106,000 was borrowed from other church organizations. However, the Building Committee still has $100,000 of cash deposited in a Canadian Bank, and it can use this to pay off a part of these loans. None of these loans have interest charges higher than 6%, and there is documentation proving that the Diocesan Council was fully aware of these loans and approved them. The allegation that any part of these loans is at “extravagant rates” is absolutely false. The money spent to date on the construction of the new church was all handled in a responsible manner by the Building Committee, which reports to the Laval Parish Council. Every penny can be fully accounted for. The land was bought at fair market price. The architectural and engineering costs were higher than normal, because midway through the project when it was downsized this work had to be redone. The site clearing, foundations and first floor have all been constructed, and adequate money has been spent over the past two winters to guard the integrity of the existing structure. Unfortunately some extra money was necessary to be paid to the first contractor for cancelling his contract after it became evident that his work was not up to expectations and relations had deteriorated. This contractor has filed an unsubstantiated claim for additional compensation, which is vigorously being opposed. There are no other claims or unpaid invoices on the project. The value of the land and partially constructed structure is worth substantially more than a million dollars, and including the architectural, engineering and permitting costs it is worth over one-and-a-half million dollars. However if it is sold the price would be well under a million dollars, because the buyer would have no use for the existing structure and he would have to demolish it and dig out the foundations. Recognizing this, the Building Committee has developed in detail a workable first phase to the project, whereby a moveable roof would be built over the existing first floor which would be properly finished to house a more modest church at a total cost of around $800,000. The finishing of the originally planned full church structure, with the roof moved to the top of its eventual second floor, can then be delayed to a far future date. A generous member of our community was prepared to donate all of the funds required to complete the construction of this modest first phase, provided that Bishop Galstanian could stay in Canada for two years to see its construction and completion. However, at a meeting with this donor on May 25th in the presence of witnesses, the leader of the group of individuals who had campaigned against Bishop Galstanian’s reelection refused this concession. The church will therefore likely not be built for lack of funds. In the past couple of weeks we have initiated several one-on-one meetings and telephone discussions with certain individuals who had campaigned against Bishop Galstanian, but so far our initiatives to find a mutually acceptable compromise have either failed or been rebuffed. We still however have faith in such a process. All that having been said, we now need to move forward in a positive way, giving up labels such as “our side” and “the other side”, and recognizing that there should only be “one side” when it comes to the welfare of our church and community in Canada. We should henceforth stop issuing mass e-mails and public letters, and we should sit down around a single table to find ways of emphasizing the things that we all agree on and de-emphasizing those that we do not. We owe that to the people of our community whom we serve. This second letter like the first is based on first hand information from reliable sources and verified facts and is issued by concerned members of our church on behalf of the more than 4,000 people who signed the petitions
Posted on: Fri, 21 Jun 2013 03:09:18 +0000
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