A friend with close ties to Echmiadzin told that Archbishop Nerses Bozabalian, nearly beaten to death by robbers, is now showing improvement, and will likely recover from the beating. “Most don’t know that Bishop Bozabalian was elected Catholicos, but the voting was falsified,” he said. “They say he was a unifier, and had plans to unite the various factions, political and otherwise, of the church. For some reason, this didn’t go over well, and he was denied becoming Catholicos.”