And so the Americans, more correctly the US State Department once again released its annual report about religious freedom. And once again it mentions that we Armenians are genetically intolerant to the freedom of religion and sects.
No, I shouldn’t have said “sects,” I should have said religious minorities. The report kept mentioning that the Armenian media keeps labeling the religious groups, which are independent from the Armenian Apostolic Church. Nevertheless, let’s not deflect from the theme. Let us note that this report didn’t differ much from the previous ones. The only addition was that the media in Armenia started to belie Levon Ter-Petrosyan and his wife by calling them Zionists and national traitors. This report differs from the previous ones with the fact that there is no word about Tigran Karapetyan and the head of the Armenian Arian Union, Armen Avetisyan. Instead the authors of the report paid attention to the One Nation party, which sticks all kinds of leaflets on walls and lamp posts on the streets and warns the nation to stay away from sects. Everything else is the same as in past. “The Constitution provides for freedom of religion; however, the law places some restrictions on the religious freedom of adherents of minority religious groups. The Government generally did not enforce existing legal restrictions on religious freedom. There was no change in the status of respect for religious freedom by the Government during the reporting period,” reads the report. If we briefly present the contents of the report we will see two main emphases – the privileged conditions of the Armenian Apostolic Church and the tragic state of Jehovah’s witnesses. “The Constitution provides for freedom of religion; however, the law places some restrictions on the religious freedom of adherents of minority religious groups. The Government generally did not enforce existing legal restrictions on religious freedom. There was no change in the status of respect for religious freedom by the Government during the reporting period. Jehovah’s Witnesses continued to report that judges sentenced them to longer prison terms for evasion of alternative service than in the past, although the sentences were within the range allowed by law. There were reports of societal abuses and discrimination based on religious affiliation, belief, or practice,” says the report. But this is said in a negative meaning. The link between Armenian ethnicity and the Armenian Church is strong. An estimated 90 percent of citizens nominally belong to the Armenian Church, one of six ancient autocephalous Eastern churches with its spiritual center (Mother See) located at the Etchmiadzin cathedral and monastery near the capital of Yerevan. It makes the Armenian Church’s marriage rite legally binding, but the supporting legal acts to enforce this were not in place at the end of the period covered by this report. “The law also allows the Armenian Church to have permanent representatives in hospitals, orphanages, boarding schools, military units, and all places of detentions, while the Law on Freedom of Conscience and Religious Organizations permits other religious organizations to have representatives in these places on demand only. In general, the Law on the Relations of the Republic of Armenia and the Armenian Church formally recognizes the moral as well as ethnic role that the Armenian Church plays in society, as most citizens see it as an integral part of national identity, history, and cultural heritage.” This statement is also outstanding. The report also says that the Government observes January 6, the day on which the Armenian Church celebrates Christmas, as a national holiday. And all this is construed as a negative phenomenon. We have a question for the authors of the report. If not the Apostolic Church what else shall the Armenian people keep ties with? Maybe some religious group that was originated in an unknown origin and suffers schizophrenia? Now let’s speak about Jehovah’s witnesses. At the beginning of the report the authors mention the religious directions of Armenia – Catholics, Orthodox Christians, Armenian Evangelical Christians, Molokans, Pentecostals, Seventh-day Adventists, Baptists, various groups of charismatic Christians, Jehovah’s Witnesses, members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormons), Yezidis (non-Muslim Kurds who practice Yezidism), Jews, Sunni Muslim Kurds, Shi’ite Muslims, Baha’is, and others. There are so many religious directions but they only speak about the complaints of Jehovah’s witnesses. “Jehovah’s Witnesses complained that, compared with the prior reporting period, the courts continued to hand down longer sentences for evasion of alternative service. Between July 1, 2007, and June 30, 2008, of the 36 Jehovah’s Witnesses sentenced, 19 received 30-month sentences and 3 received 36-month sentences, the maximum allowed by law. The remaining 14 received prison terms ranging between 22 and 27 months. According to Jehovah’s Witnesses leaders in Yerevan, at the end of the reporting period, 78 of their members remained in prison for refusal to perform military service or alternative labor service on conscientious and religious grounds. Representatives of Jehovah’s Witnesses stated that all of the prisoners had been given the opportunity to serve an alternative to military service rather than prison time but had refused because the military continued to retain administrative control over the alternative service. Other than Jehovah’s Witnesses who were conscientious objectors, there were no reports of religious prisoners or detainees in the country,” reads the report. According to some observers, the general population expressed negative attitudes about minority religious groups, especially Jehovah’s Witnesses, because of the latter’s refusal to serve in the military, the group’s little-understood proselytizing practices, and a widespread but unsubstantiated belief that Jehovah’s Witnesses pay the desperately poor to convert. Minority religious groups at times continued to be targets of hostile sermons by Armenian Church clerics, and members of minority religious groups experienced societal discrimination and intolerance. According to the report an alleged Armenian Apostolic priest, Nver Melkonyan, physically assaulted a member of their group in Sisian after the member offered to engage in Bible study with him. The authors of the report would be right to ask themselves a question. “Why do Armenians never have problems with Yezidis?” “Or why would the Armenian priest assault a Jehovah’s Witness and not a molocan?” The main question is perhaps a little rhetoric. Why would a country, which has less than a three-hundred year history, dictates its opinion to country, which has a 1700-year Christianity history? The question is rhetoric but simple. Only those, who allow to be preached and taught, are being preached and taught. The law on religion freedom is defined for all countries, but the comprehension and influence are different depending on the country. For example, the Frenchmen or the Englishmen don’t care much what an American thinks about their religion and its freedom in their countries. But we are different… In fact, we don’t care about it either but we have to show that we do and that we are trying to undertake steps to improve the status in the country because we are a small country and depend on the US. But what can we do? Although I don’t dare to advise or recommend but will try to express my viewpoint as defined by the Constitution (as defined for the Jehovah’s Witnesses and Mormons). And the opinion is that the Jehovah’s Witnesses and other “nerve eaters” shouldn’t be beaten even if you love them very much. We just need to speak with them in their language and act exceptionally in the legal field. If you think that someone is disturbing your rest or gets on your nerves just remember that Article 33 of the RA Constitution, which defines that everyone has a right for rest. And that right is no less important than the right of Jehovah’s Witnesses to preach. Therefore, any attempt of disturbing your rest is violation of the RA Constitution. Just remind them of that. They are scared of prison and military service more than hell.
