Bring Back Fr. Barthev

We, the undersigned, as faithful Armenian Christians, suffer the forceful and involuntary departure of Fr. Barthev from Southern California. Having witnessed Fr. Barthev's unwavering dedication to our faith and his teachings to the lost, weak, imprisoned, and sick, we now thirst for his presence in our community. You took away our professor of faith, and left us with underachieving substitutes.

You made promises of bringing back Fr. Barthev during your Pontifical visit to Los Angeles in October 2011. Upon your departure, the Armenian community has had distribution of misinformation by H.E. Arch. Moushegh Mardirossian and the deceptive and misleading information leaks by the Executive Council of the Western Prelacy regarding Fr. Barthev's return. Treating the Armenian faithful community as fools, the Western Prelacy has provided nothing but lies regarding the efforts supposedly made by the Prelacy in bringing back Fr. Barthev. Excuse upon excuse, blame upon blame, and lie upon lie, we have now found out that Fr. Barthev has been assigned a new duty in Venezuela.

The efforts made by Fr. Barthev over the last six years in leading his role as God's shepherd with the community at large have now been wasted. Fr. Barthev did what you always preached: bring the Church to the People. He did. He succeeded. Now you took him away from the thousands of people whose faith Fr. Barthev strengthened. We want nothing more than to follow your teachings in your book; however, Fr. Barthev is desperately needed to achieve this monumental task in one of the largest Armenian communities outside of Armenia and the Middle East.

This is our plea: we "need" Fr. Barthev. Simply put, as our only remaining hope and leader, we kindly request that you send Fr. Barthev back to Southern California. Please hear our cry.

Faithfully yours,