ISTANBUL. – General Vicar of the Armenian Patriarchate of Constantinople, Archbishop Aram Ateşyan, confirmed that he purchased an apartment in Istanbul.

Ateşyan told Agos Armenian bilingual weekly of the Turkish city that he bought the apartment with his salary which he had collected for forty years, and he considered the spreading of unfounded rumors against him to be a wrongdoing.

Rumors were circulating among the Armenian community of Istanbul that, two years after purchasing a home in the Turkish resort city of Bodrum, Archbishop Aram Ateşyan recently bought a US$500,000 apartment in Istanbul.