“Today, you can find 110 religious TV channels. There are new unregistered religious sects coming into the light, but they are rather active,” says president of the “Recuperation and Help Center for people suffering effects from destructive religions” Alexander Amaryan.
According to Amaryan, the center has been able to track down the names and gathering sites of 15 religious sects that have been founded in Armenia during the past 3-4 years, including “Embassy of God”, “Blessed by God”, “People of God”, “House of God”, “Church of God”, “Emmanuel”, “Traces of Nazareth”, “Rema”, “Logos” full Bible in Yerevan, “Alpha Omega”, “New Generation”, “Glorification”, “Good Samaritan”, “Good Word” and “Vernatun” churches. Mr. Amaryan claims that there are over 300-350 Armenians who are followers of these religious sects. He says that there were some religious open-air events organized in the Erebuni community on September 24-30 organized by the “Good Samaritan” church representatives (the church is directly tied to the “Good Samaritan” meat product store)-Kevin and Leslie Macknolt from America. I also found out that the “Emmanuel” church, located in south-west Yerevan, starts each gathering with a showing of the film “The Passion of the Christ” and the preaching follows. According to the director of the center, many famous Armenian singers are members of the religious sects mentioned above. Amaryan also says that there are criminals among the sect members, but the center president says that it’s too early to talk about that or mention any names. “As of today, the religious sects have started invading the health sector and accomplish their goals through the means of that sector. They know very well that it’s easy to have an influence on the psychology of an ill person,” says Amaryan. One of the ways that the religious sects work is organizing charity health seminars, during which they hand out free medicine, medical appliances and consultations. As a rule, they do this on behalf of different scientific/cultural organizations and NGOs. Amaryan says that the “Word of Life” church ha opened a aid center for pregnant women in Armenia and the Mkrtumyan couple as presidents. “Question: do the people whom they give the medicine really need that medicine, or who has checked what the ingredients for that medicine are? These are the types of questions that the corresponding bodies should give answers to,” says A. Amaryan. For example, the Adventists have a benevolent organization called the “Adventist Development and Relief Agency” (ADRA) headed by Edgar Castilion. The Russian presses present ADRA as a organization that provides funding for Chechnyan soldiers and it’s also carrying out its mission in Iraq and Nakhijevan. Health exhibitions/seminars took place for eight days in June in Yerevan with funding provided by the organization. According to the information from the Ministry of Health, medical aid is a licensed act in the Republic of Armenia and with the government’s decision, only hospitals and clinics can provide medical aid.
Flyers against sects
The members of the “One Nation” party have chosen the right path towards fighting against religious sects-the spreading of flyers. “Taking advantage of the moral/psychological and social crisis created in Armenia, sects are able to lead the uneducated people of Armenia in the wrong direction with their propaganda and simple methods,” says leader of the party Gor Tamazyan. By defending the Armenian Apostolic Church, they will come out with t heir 11th march on the streets of Yerevan in early November. But this march, which the organizers like to call a “struggle”, is small compared to the “movement”, which is organized by the numerous religious sects of Armenia that have members ranging from 300-350,000, according to Alexander Amaryan.