World IN BRIEF : ISRAEL : Bishop Calls Himself Armenian Patriarch
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A bishop claiming to be the new Armenian patriarch of Jerusalem barricaded himself in the St. James convent and monastery there with submachine gun-toting bodyguards, and officials protested to police, a church spokesman said. Bishop Shahe Ajemian, a day after the death of Patriarch Yeghishe Derderian, reportedly proclaimed himself successor. The Armenian patriarch is the spiritual leader of 8,000 Armenian Christians in Israel, the occupied West Bank and Jordan. In 1982, Ajemian was ousted by the brotherhood of St. James after a series of scandals.
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