The church or the religious organizations?
The main debate on the draft Constitution, of course, is about reproduction and non-reproduction “narrations”. The debate in itself is quite ridiculous, but there is another debate dimension, where the ones saying “No” claim that this draft destroys the Armenian traditional family and the church, while the others, on the contrary, claim that the draft tries to create a theocracy in Armenia. It is normal. Those who (probably from the West) get a grant to defend the interests of the homosexuals accuse the society and the state of the intolerance against sexual minorities.
Those who (probably from Russia) receive a grant to defend the “traditional and patriotic values”, burn the LGBT flag. People who are fed from the same source defend the Armenian Apostolic Church from the new draft of the Constitution. While their opponents defend the public from the danger of theocracy. As for the LGBT, then this issue is fabricated in Armenia from end to end. According to Article 34 of the draft Constitution, “Man and woman of marriageable age have the right to marry and found a family according to their free will.”
People need to be very fascinated by the grants to see any problem here. When two men or two women enter the Civil Registry Office in Armenia willing to get married, then there will be an opportunity to talk about such matters. But this is unlikely to happen in the coming decades. For the church, the matter is slightly more complicated. Article 16 of the draft Constitution reads, “1. The Republic of Armenia guarantees freedom of activities for all religious organizations. 2. The religious organizations are separated from the state in the Republic of Armenia.”
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Article 17 reiterates the wording about the exclusive mission of the Armenian Apostolic Church one after the other that are available in the current Constitution. Article 40 of the draft reads, “Everyone shall have the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion. This right includes freedom to change the religion or belief and freedom to, either alone or in community with others manifest the religion or belief, through preaching, church ceremonies and other religious rites.”
Is it sufficient for the freedom of activities for all religious organizations? Today, yes. But tomorrow a question may arise whether the Armenian Apostolic Church is a religious organization (political scientist Stepan Danielyan drew attention on this circumstance in an interview with me). Therefore, it seems to me that the correct wording is as follows: the church (rather than the religious organizations) operate separately from the state as it is written in the 13 constitutions of the “post-Soviet” states. (Incidentally, the issue of being “separate from the state” are surprisingly bypassed by the constitutions of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Hungary and Venezuela).
Among the European countries, the concept of a “dominant religion” is available only in the Constitution of Armenia, while “the official religion” is talked in the Constitution of seven countries, including the Great Britain, Denmark and Norway, whose being democratic and secular does not raise a particular doubt. The Basic laws of a number of states, including Georgia, Bulgaria and India mentions the concept of a “traditional religion”, which is close to our wording. But the approach that particularly exists in the constitutions of Spain, the USA, Japan, Ukraine and Estonia is closer to my heart, where a special prohibition is imposed on having any “official” or “state” religion. The point is that for our Armenian world outlook, the more official, the worse.
Any “formalization”, any “revelation” of any our bishop next to the official does not raise the role of the Mother Church, on the contrary, it undermines it. Hence, our Church should earn the respect and authority thru other, “non-state” ways. In Israel, as we know, there is no Constitution at all. And it’s no coincidence. The Jews believe that their Basic Law is the commandments of Moses. In that respect, we are very different from the Jews.
ARAM ABRAHAMYAN
