All Political Arenas in Armenia Acknowledge the Priority of Church Reform Agenda: Vahagn Aleksanyan

All political entities in Armenia have acknowledged the priority of the church reform agenda. This was stated by Vahagn Aleksanyan, a member of the 'Civil Contract' party, on his Facebook page.

“Yes, yes, I’m not mistaken – all political forces without exception. Look at the opposition media, look at the pages of opposition figures. They all speak with one voice about the issues within the episcopacy. This bishop is like this, that bishop is like that. In other words, if you read the opposition in a vacuum, it will seem that the Church is in a disgraceful state. The problem is that the opposition only speaks against those bishops and ecclesiastics who directly condemned the blatant profanation. But, dear opposition leaders, just two days ago you were saying that the Church should solve its issues internally. Now ten bishops are trying to address the problems, so why are you interfering in internal affairs? During all this time, you claimed there were no issues in the Church, and now you’re leveling disgraceful accusations against those ten bishops. Why were you silent about this until the moment when they spoke out against blatant profanation? In other words, were you really at peace with all of this? No, without a doubt, you were at peace with everything you said and would continue to be at peace if the bishops had not spoken openly against this profanation. But even in this context, I welcome the opposition's adoption of the Church's reform agenda; indeed, you are acknowledging that there are enormous problems within the Church. Of course, this is still only observed in the ranks of those speaking against profanation and ignored among the defenders of profanation, but this too is temporary,” he wrote.

It is worth noting that the day before, the bishops had issued a statement indicating that the Catholicos considered the findings of the commission he had established to be inconsequential. It was stated that the commission was supposed to examine and provide conclusions regarding the indecent videos attributed to Bishop Arshak Khachatryan, the authenticity of which has been confirmed by the Investigative Committee. The commission had repeatedly, including individual bishops, consistently brought the issue to the Catholicos's attention. The approach he has adopted is highly puzzling and extremely concerning for the bishops. The Prime Minister had met with the clergy who signed the statement.