Last week, public attention was drawn to yet another prank by the Russian duo Vovan and Lexus, this time targeting OSCE Secretary General Feridun Sinirlioğlu. Posing as Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, they raised the issue of removing the Catholicos of All Armenians. Believing he was speaking to Pashinyan, Sinirlioğlu expressed his readiness to assist within the limits of his authority. Needless to say, the exchange was highly revealing.
But wasn’t it already clear that the campaign against the Mother See of Holy Etchmiadzin and the senior leadership of the Armenian Apostolic Church is driven by far more than Nikol Pashinyan’s personal motives or political calculations? Hasn’t it long been evident that, to put it mildly, the campaign serves a broader external agenda—one that extends well beyond Turkey and Azerbaijan?
In this context, Sinirlioğlu himself is little more than a bureaucrat who, in reality, has no decisive influence either on international affairs or on matters concerning the Armenian Apostolic Church. The more intriguing question is why Vovan and Lexus chose to make this issue the subject of one of their pranks before a Russian audience. Is this topic really in such high demand there—especially at a time when many Russians appear to be far more preoccupied with the price and availability of gasoline?
I also find it difficult to believe that Vovan and Lexus have any genuine interest in the fate of the Catholicos of All Armenians. More importantly, given that Nikol Pashinyan has built his campaign on claims that the Catholicos and senior clergymen are supposedly “KGB agents” acting against Armenia’s independence, it would perhaps be wiser for Russia’s media landscape—and for the media personalities operating within it—to keep their distance from the issue. As the recent election campaign has already demonstrated, Russia’s involvement in such matters tends, to put it mildly, to produce the opposite of its intended effect: rather than weakening Pashinyan, it ends up reinforcing his position. Unless, of course, that is precisely the outcome those orchestrating such moves are hoping to achieve.
Read also
For Armenian society, it would be far more useful—and indeed essential—to focus not on foreign media spectacles but on the genuine and far more dangerous manifestations of the external forces driving the campaign against the Armenian Apostolic Church. Those forces are real, yet they receive far too little attention as long as public discourse remains captivated by political shows.
Hakob BADALYAN
