“All the world’s major religions, with their emphasis on love, compassion, patience, tolerance, and forgiveness can and do promote inner values. But… I am increasingly convinced that the time has come to find a way of thinking about spirituality and ethics beyond religion altogether.” This is what Dalai Lama wrote on his Facebook page. Of course, it is a matter of choice for each of us: to love, compassionate and forgive, be a follower of any religion or not. But it is evident that the Armenians realities do not induce people to the aforementioned ethical norms, be they religious or secular.
The opening of the next church built by the next wealthy. His Holiness speaks of the spiritual food, which is the precondition of material food, daily bread. The entire elite are present, the “bodyguards” are more than the “faithful people.” The guards were pushing them urging “not to fall under feet.” The ceremony in the newly opened church is done for the “favorites”, ordinary people have no access. Then, the “elite” is going to feast (to the point, the “object” of the businessman who some months ago was promising “to compel a regime change”), while the ordinary citizens remain in the churchyard to fight for a piece offering, which perhaps embodies the unity of the spiritual and material food.
Does this event reinforce the belief with all its “spices”? I think, not. Because believing, forgiving, compassionating and loving does not mean building a church, it is an overly easy way, an overly “wide door.” And the standards of the elite in the spiritual life definitely do not comply with secular standards and are not due to the number of “bodyguards” and the luxury of the tables.
Here, it turns out that the true words of His Holiness in theory that the foundation of everything, including the daily bread, are the spiritual values sound forged. Because they are uttered in the alien “event-context” for these ideas. I think there is no Christian belief if you sincerely do not consider yourself an equal member of your co-believers’ brotherhood, if you are not restrained and temperate in your life, if you build or consecration a church driven from the vanity.
In the places where the high-ranking clergy fall behind the formality, but contextually runs a non-Christian life, the reformist movements are born: Paulicianism, Lutheranism, and Calvinists. Simply, people need to have the power to counter the true spiritual content to this hollow formality. As Dalai Lama suggests.
Aram ABRAHAMYAN
