ArmInfo.A package of bills "On Making Addenda to the Law" On the Meetings "and on Making Amendments and Addenda to the Law on Administrative Offenses, providing for a ban on organizing and holding meetings and assemblies in the AAC buildings and territories against the church, was submitted to the Armenian parliament.
The draft law also provides for administrative punishment in the form of a fine for violation of these norms. The document assumes at the legislative level to provide state protection to the Catholicos of all Armenians. Currently, only the president, prime minister and speaker of parliament use this right. As stated in the statement of one of the authors of the bill, the vice speaker of the parliament Eduard Sharmazanov, such a need arose after, against the backdrop of domestic political processes in the country, groups acting against the church and national values intensified.
"Against the backdrop of recent political changes, the situation has arisen when the mission of the Armenian Apostolic Church is being questioned: the actions launched recently by some groups against our church threaten its social and national-spiritual status and contain the potential to form a negative attitude towards the church, that in the created situation the authorities show themselves very passively, while, within the framework of their spiritual and national competence, the question of the role of the state in ensuring a normal and safe the functioning of the Armenian Church remains open.This situation creates fertile ground for encroachment on the security and social status of the church.It should be stressed that the Armenian Constitution recognizes the unique status of the AAC as a national church, and I will remind those "human rights activists" who will especially care about this bill , that in many advanced European countries such laws have already been adopted, "the statement said.