Two sets of rules: One for the Church, another for the State

On matters of the Armenian Church and State, we seem to be operating under two sets of rules. One set of rules is for the government of Nikol Pashinyan, which has shown, time and again, only hostility toward the Armenian Apostolic Church. With breathtaking contempt, he has mercilessly attacked the Church’s dignity and authority, vilifying clergy, undermining Catholicos Karekin II and the entire Catholicosate of Etchmiadzin. He treats the spiritual heart of the Armenian nation as a disposable commodity, to be fully owned or forever crushed. When state power — in the form of heavily armed riot police — is used to intimidate, arrest and silence Church leaders, and when sacred institutions are treated as political targets rather than national treasures, Pashinyan’s message is clear: He is hell-bent on breaking the Armenian Church. And yet, we still see figures within our Church operating under a second set of rules. Even as Pashinyan actively seeks to destroy this sacred institution, certain clerical leaders continue to participate in his stage-managed anti-Church productions — from his fake prayer breakfast in Yerevan (home of dozens of illegally jailed Armenian faithful) to his recent National Cathedral event in Washington (attended by about two dozen guests). All this raises questions that many among our faithful are asking quietly, and increasingly out loud: Why does our Church behave as though it owes courtesy to those who offer it none? Why do they kiss the hand that strikes them down? Why, having survived so very much over so many centuries, are they playing a willing role in their own destruction? Now Pashinyan is surely no Caesar, but, even if he were, it would be sinful, as Christians, to render him such utter servility, such abject subservience. The Christian Church has a far higher calling: “We must obey God rather than men” (Acts 5:29). In fact, Jesus taught us how to deal with those who defile the temples of God — who enter our places of worship, desecrating all that is holy: “And Jesus went into the temple of God, and cast out all them that sold and bought in the temple, and overthrew the tables of the moneychangers, and the seats of them that sold doves. . . And said unto them, it is written, my house shall be called the house of prayer; but ye have made it a den of thieves” (Matthew 21:12-13). Recall the words of Jesus Christ to his apostle Peter: “And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.” That is the true power, purpose and fearlessness of our faith. Let us resolve today to stand up, as one, against a misguided soul who has come to see himself as a secular god, entitled to remake our faith in his image. This must start with bright red lines, in the spirit of the prophet Isaiah: "Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness.” Zero tolerance for Pashinyan’s persecution of the Armenian Apostolic Church. Zero participation in any of Pashinyan’s fake “reform the Church” events. Zero attendance, in fact, at any of Pashinyan’s staged religious programs — until his wrongs are finally set right.

Two sets of rules: One for the Church, another for the State

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Berj Parseghian

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Berj Parseghian

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