Aravot.am asked Shirak Diocese Michael Bishop Ajapahyan what gathered so many people to the Vardanants Square in Gyumri on the day of the Pope’s Divine Mass: merely the curiosity or the exemplary image of the priest as the representatives of the Catholic Church interpret. “Some people if they want to present their dreams as a reality, it is their problem, many people have dreamed of many things but it is not so. The people recognized the pope during and after rather than knew him before, consequently, the people of Gyumri and the vast majority of those present were naturally the children of our church and had come driven by simple curiosity.
It is seen obviously, and their curiosity was met because the Pope represented as it were worthy to be represented. And the expectations of our people were justified. That is proven by the friendly atmosphere to the Pope in the following days and up to now. The expectations of our people were justified, first of all, by the word genocide and then by high evaluation to our people and our church and also by the pope’s moderate, modest and sociable stance, but people have not come to the Square for seeing an exemplary priest for no one knew the pope to anticipate an exemplary priest… Then, what does it mean to use an exemplary clergyman for the case of the pope? Is only the Pope an exemplary clergyman in the whole world? There are exemplary priests in all countries, in all churches, both Catholic, Apostolic and Orthodox. If the world has only one exemplary priest, the situation would be very bad,” – said the Bishop. Shirak Diocese Bishop thinks that our church does not need lessons of modesty of the Pope. “Yes, he gave lessons of modesty but to whom, our church did not need these lessons, our church by origin and by birth has been and is now a modest church. There would be priests in every church who would divert from the overall modest living, but the church, in general, and the Armenian church, in general, is a church with modest and temperate living. We did not have the need for modesty lessons because we ourselves have and are giving lessons of modesty to the world. And the pope also took this lesson voluntarily, that is why he stressed that our church is a glorious church and called on us, the locals, without expecting big profits in return. Hence, the Pope’s message in all these years, 3 years since he is the pope, his behest of modesty is primarily addressed to the Catholic Church rather than us.” To the clarifying question that in other words, there are clergymen in the Catholic Church with immodest lifestyle, the Bishop said, “Certainly, if some people must direct the arrow against us, just a reminder, how much money did the Catholic church spend for the pope’s mass just on this stage: about 67 million drams, they could have not spend it and distribute to the poor. Hence, it is not so that everything can be hooked at the distorting mirror and only see that allegedly the Pope had something to say to the Armenian Apostolic Church and came to give a lesson of modesty to the Apostolic Church. The Apostolic Church has never spent even 67 thousand drams for any stage, as it prefers to spend the money elsewhere. Hence, let no one attribute the rights to himself to give a lesson of modesty to the Armenian Church. The Armenians church is the modest church in the world, go and ask foreigners if you do not know.”
To our observation that in any case, the Armenian society against the background of the Pope’s visit began making comparisons between our clergymen, particularly the Patriarch and His Holiness Pope Francis, it was emphasized that our clergymen like luxury, Michael Bishop said, “There is no such thing, I repeatedly referred to this question and repeatedly tried to present the issue more softly. And now, I can already say that there is no such a thing, and it is just an order, and order from the top, I do not know by which forces to discredit the Armenian Church and the Armenian priesthood. The 98 per cent of the Armenian priesthood is living in modest conditions. I can say that at least 40 percent lives even in poverty. Please be kind to focus your attention on the 98 percent rather than your presumed 2 percent. I even do not agree with this two percent but even if we accept, it does not exceed the 2 percent. And when you, the journalists and the media, focus your attention on their presumed two percent, this means that it is just an order.”
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Photos by Gevorg Ghazaryan
Nune AREVSHATYAN
