VIDEO: I am the last person in Armenia to say this - Pashinyan on church-state conflict

Some are surprised, even outraged, that Armenia is developing and deepening its relations with the EU. But why shouldn't it deepen those relations? This was stated today by Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan at a press conference.

“Does anyone ask us that in places where we see a problem, we deepening our relations, and in our understanding, this occurs at the expense of our interests? Does anyone ask us? When we say, 'Why don’t you ask?', they say, 'We are a sovereign state.' Well, we are a sovereign state too. We are ready to consult, to dialogue, but there is no regime of getting permission. This approach is universal. If you are not a sovereign state and you act with the permission of A entity, and then you change your relationship with G entity with the permission of that entity, that is not sovereignty,” he said.

Pashinyan also addressed the topic of the church-state conflict. “We are not in conflict with the church. Whether the church is in conflict with us or not, they should answer that question. If certain clergymen are making political statements, it means they are admitting their failure or inability to provide spiritual leadership. Today, there are clergymen in Armenia who are genuinely providing spiritual leadership. Spiritual leadership is helping people in their relationship with God, so that a person finds harmony with their inner world. There are clergymen who carry out that activity. Those clergymen making political statements are those who have failed in their spiritual leadership and in connecting people with God. Unfortunately, many high-ranking clergymen are in that situation. Not all, but many.

I fear that the spiritual leadership has failed at the highest level. One can engage with clergymen dozens of times and hear nothing about the Bible, but instead discuss various things about cement, concrete, transporting products, importing, clearing customs, exporting, withdrawing money from there, depositing it here, changing one minibus with another, comparing the new Mercedes with the old one, etc. I am not surprised that they are making political statements because they have nothing to do in the spiritual field, that is not theirs. Maybe they have not read the Bible to the end,” declared Nikol Pashinyan.

According to Pashinyan, the leadership of the Armenian Apostolic Church has failed in spiritual leadership. “I am the last person in Armenia to say this. There are no problems with business projects, no problems with coffee-chocolate, absolutely no issues with auto-minibuses, at the expert level. God, the Bible, testament, evangel, I seriously doubt that has anything to do with them. This is a rooted discourse in Armenia. So what should those people do? They have to make political statements because they do not master the activities of a cleric, that is boring for them. There were times that they themselves had quotas among the clergy in importation of Mercedes, Bentley, Lexus, and all these things. Now no one has quotas,” Pashinyan stated.

“Today people have come out, openly advocating for war. In the name of whom are they advocating for war? They say the temple will triumph over the street, but who is the street? The street is the people, the populace. I am here by the will of the people and I will not be here by the will of the people. Those people were saying in 2021, ‘What does the will of the people have to do with it, give us the power.’ Excuse me, is that power for free, that I should give it to you? I can only give it to the holder of that power. The power is in the hands of the people every day, in that sense it is in the hands of the people. The people entrusted their power in 2021 and I am fulfilling that mandate. If the people decide that they want war, I will try to present everything to the people, and that is what I am doing now. Now they also say, ‘What do you want, we want to bring the previous ones to power.’ But who are you to bring them to power or not? That can only be done exclusively by the people,” Pashinyan emphasized.