By Dr. Arshavir Gundjian, C.M.
Alas, Mr. Pashinyan…It is very difficult for us to understand the shortsighted thinking, amidst the already fragile current psychological state of the country, that led you, with provocative and crude language targeting the leaders of the Armenian Apostolic Church, to ultimately humiliate only yourself and your immediate circles.
Mr. Prime Minister, we have expressed repeatedly the demand of the overwhelming majority of the knowledgeable Armenian populace for you to bring together all the important structures of our people so that we may be able to overcome the great existential dangers threatening our homeland and nation today.
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It is unacceptable for all of us that not only have you made practically no effort in this regard until today, but on the contrary, you and your immediate circle, obviously with your encouragement, use a vocabulary which is most incendiary for polite ordinary Armenians, and declare war against the senior hierarchs of the Armenian Church. We must infer that you deliberately ignore that the Armenian Church, with its worldwide structure, has been for 17 centuries and remains, despite certain shortcomings, one of the most important factors assuring our national survival.
Under these circumstances, Your Excellency, in order to remain consistent, we are compelled to remind you again that our supreme national interests demand that you, in this period of grave crisis, consider it your primary and most serious immediate obligation to create a platform for national unity, where all the important structures representing the power of the entire Armenian people, whether operating in the homeland or in the diaspora – political, intellectual, scientific and yes, even spiritual – come together. It is only with all our combined and coordinated forces that we can build the powerful defenses which will hopefully permit us to effectively fight and ultimately overcome the current unprecedented vortex of global dangers.
It is simply not permissible for any of us, especially you, Mr. Prime Minister, under the current crisis conditions, to ignore or weaken any of the roots of our national resilience, in this case in particular the Armenian Church.
There are plenty of serious grounds for criticism.
At the cost of repetition, we are forced to specify, Mr. Prime Minister, that first and foremost, on behalf of the Armenian people, you are required to correct all the omissions of responsibilities in the areas considered to be your national duties.
We demand that you strengthen and modernize the national army that protects the borders of our country in proportion to the seriousness of today’s dangers. Without this, diplomatic agreements will remain impotent and powerless.
We demand that, in parallel with the development of the economy, you encourage our people to become masters of their native language, their history and their culture.
We demand that our sanctities not become the subject of political bargaining, including our sacred Mount Ararat, the centuries-old symbol of Armenia, the unnegotiable demand for justice for the Armenian Genocide, and Artsakh, who after thirty years of glory, today stands with its churches turned into mosques and its historical national monuments in ruins.
We demand in particular, Mr. Prime Minister, that you should consider it a priority to organize by means of significant state resources information networks with international reach and thus build internationally pro-Armenian public opinion. At present, these are simply non-existent, and the field is wide open for widespread Azerbaijani disinformation.
It is as a result of your abovementioned major omissions, Mr. Prime Minister, that we lost Karabakh, with all its national wealth. It is also unbelievable, condemnable and extremely dangerous that to this day, the Armenian state has not yet resorted to any effective measures when the Azerbaijani administration and its entire press freely call the whole of Armenia itself “Western Azerbaijan.”
We know, of course, Mr. Prime Minister, that your resources are somewhat limited, but among your important shortcomings is also the lack of a serious attitude by the state towards the diaspora, which, although by nature inevitably uncoordinated, has enormous resources.
After all this, as for the issues within the structure of the Armenian Church, as is the case with all our other institutions, including political ones, it is natural and correct that, just as in the past, there are still important reforms that must be carried out today. However, in the context of these concerns, compared to our other structures, fortunately our church, with the participation of clergy and laity, has a most serious canonical administrative machinery in operation, through which, as in the past, improvements must be made today. In that legitimate administrative system, every faithful Armenian baptized with holy Myron has equal duties and rights. It is only in the case of fulfilling those requirements that you also may enjoy such designated duties and rights. However, it is absolutely clear that your position as prime minister, constitutionally does not grant you any additional rights in this realm.
This is why it is unacceptable and condemnable for all of us that you and your entourage have attacked using unacceptable language senior servants of the Armenian Church. On the contrary, Mr. Prime Minister, it is now expected that you publicly apologize to the Church and Armenian society for your inappropriate and shameful writings, as you are expected to uphold behavior of a much higher standard.
In conclusion, we will reiterate that, unfortunately, during these otherwise already critical distressing days, your shameful writings forced us to deviate for a moment from the greatest existential national concerns.
Mr. Prime Minister, repeating the immortal words of the poet Vahan Tekeyan, as spiritual parents, “The Church is the birthplace of the soul of the Armenian people,” we, and you, must approach it lovingly and constructively, and nurture it. On the condition that all the above enumerated expectations we have from you are fully met, and as long as you occupy the highest responsible position of the homeland, we, Mr. Prime Minister, considering our duty, will also continue to provide assurance of our cooperation within the limits of our abilities in your current decidedly difficult work of overcoming the dangers threatening our homeland.
(The above article is a translation of the Armenian original published in Baikar.)