3. The duties of the nation are to care for the moral, intellectual, and material wants of its members, to preserve intact the creed and traditions of the Armenian Church, to diffuse equally the knowledge necessary to all men among the children of both sexes and of all classes, to watch over the prosperity of national institutions, to increase the national income in any possible lawful way and wisely to administer the national expenses, to improve the condition of those who have devoted themselves for life to the service of the nation and to secure their future, to provide for the needy, peaceably to adjust the disputes that may arise among the members of the nation—in a word, to labour with self-denial for the progress of the nation.
These obligations on the part of the nation are the rights of its members.
4. The authority which is appointed to represent the nation and to supervise and administer the regular performance of these mutual obligations is called the National Administration. To this body is committed, by especial permission of the Ottoman Government and by virtue of the Constitution, the care of the internal affairs of the Armenians of Turkey.
5. In order that the Administration may be national it should be representative.
6. The foundation of this Representative Administration is the principle of rights and duties, which is the principle of justice. Its strength is to be found in the plurality of voices, which is the principle of legality.
Chapter I
The Central National Administration
I. The Patriarch of Constantinople
His Election and Resignation
Article 1.—The Patriarch of Constantinople is the President of all the National Assemblies and the representative of their executive authority, and in particular circumstances he is the medium of the execution of the orders of the Ottoman Government.