– Holy Father, when the RA President makes it to the last moment of the clerical services and when he doesn’t kiss the sacred cross of the Catholicos the society seems to start to connect all the negative things in the country with the fact of Kocharyan being an atheist. Do you think the fact that the President is an atheist has a serious impact on the value system of the society?
– I think we must be very careful when evaluating a person’s religious leanings. I don’t know any tool, which would define the extent of a person’s creed, but I know a way to define whether the person is religious or not. Morality is a key factor, but moral approaches are conditional if they are not based on the fact of God’s existence. This means that if the person has certain moral elements I can’t believe that he or she can be an atheist. There is no atheist human being. I don’t know any person who doesn’t have a certain moral credo. Morality is part of a person’s religiousness and creed. If we don’t have belief in the phenomenon of the judgement day, we won’t live our lives in a moral way. Concerning our president, we know that he belongs to our previous Soviet regime, and he was brought up under that regime. During that period the state never encouraged active expression of religiousness and creed as well as a positive relation to the Church. There are people who don’t attend religious services or are not actively involved in other clerical events but it doesn’t mean that they don’t believe in the God or the existence of the church. This means that deep inside they have belief but they don’t frequently express that.
– Instead our oligarchs in their campaign ads, as a rule, love to be filmed when lighting a candle in church. The light of the candle reflects the gold jewelry they are wearing. I wonder whether God approves this fake belief, as even human beings don’t like to see such things.
– I think every single expression of religiousness must be originated by the actual belief of a person without any artificial or fake elements. I think the moral image of a person is the best indicator when estimating every single deed. In this regard, all these deeds must be observed as each is being expressed.
– The last most remarkable event was the service offered by the mayor of Gyumri. Have you heard of the religious mayor of Gyumri?
– As of church services and other religious events, you know that those are held by certain religious officials who receive this power through religious ceremonies. Non-clerical people cannot hold services. (Mayor Vardan Ghukasyan hasn’t even applied to the church for holding a service).
– Holy Father, the last parliamentary elections may also be considered the indicator of morality of our society. Are you aware of the great number of people engaged in electoral violations? It seems that the church didn’t respond in any way about this. And, I am personally interested if you participated in the elections and if you found someone in the list, who deserved to be elected.
– Indeed I participated in the elections and tried to vote for the political party, which would provide guaranteed stability for the country. I am having a hard time generalizing things here, whether there was electoral bribery or to what extent. I can’t also say whether the number of violations actually affected the results of the elections. I don’t have such information. Of course there is such information provided by the mass media, but I cannot find sufficient grounds for me to claim whether it’s right or wrong.
– The church is thought of, by society, as being a closed structure. From there, no information is disseminated. As an example, I can mention a recent case, which I heard on TV. It said that some priest was unqualified but it didn’t mention the any reasons.
– We have always mentioned the reason. Certain priests were unqualified because of disobeying religious norms and rules or because of refusing to comply with their duties. By disobeying, I mean that when the priests were complaining that they couldn’t fulfil their duty in a given geographical area because they were too far from the children and wife and other cases like that. However the clergyman, just like the soldier, must be devoted to his duties and get adapted to all conditions.
– By the way, about the clergymen, they quite often don’t stand out with their modesty. Very often one can see priests with luxury cars…
– So, in your opinion, the priest must look poor and miserable? You know that vehicles are not considered as luxury any more. I don’t deny that there are priests driving luxury cars. Being religious doesn’t mean being innocent. Being a clergyman doesn’t mean to give up struggling against sins and temptations.
– Holy Father, returning to our topic, I’d like to ask you this. Don’t you think that our oligarchs, who build casinos or clubs and meanwhile build churches in their backyard, are mistaken when thinking that the eye in the sky watches them only when praying while not noticing their casinos?
– If the person decides to build a church, it cannot be considered a negative thing. But people must understand that the churches they are building must be blessed from the foundation till the cross on the dome. During the last 10 years, many churches were built privately, and the people who built those agreed to ultimately give them to the state church. There is also another dangerous thing. Many people (e.g. a woman in Kharberd) try to bewilder and confuse people when claiming they have direct contact with God. People build private churches, while others claim they are doctors sent by God. These things are more dangerous.
– Holy Father, although our meeting was originally planned to speak about the recently adopted law on “Relations with the Apostolic Church”, we saved it as the last question of the meeting. I think that the state and the church were communicating very well even before the adoption of this law, when we had the law on “Conscience and Religious Organizations”.
– The law on “Conscience and Religious Organizations” had one shortcoming. This law put the official Apostolic Church of Armenia on the same level of equality as other religious organizations, which includes both the Orthodox Catholic Church as well as various sects. In this regard, the last law clearly defines that it is the Armenian Apostolic Church, which plays a crucial life in the cultural life of Armenians as well as a structure, which maintains the identity of the Armenians.