Holy Etchmiadzin accuses Pashazade for spreading  misinformation

ArmInfo.. The Mother See of Holy Etchmiadzin has accused the Chairman of the Caucasus Muslim Office Sheikh-ul-Islam, Allahshukur Pashazade, of spreading misinformation and sowing enmity and hatred against the Armenian people and the Armenian Church.

The statement released by the press office of the Mother See of Holy  Etchmiadzin noted that days earlier at the meeting of the Council of  Gazis in Baku, Pashazade, assuming the role of a distributor of lies  from the Azerbaijani propaganda machine, once again directed hatred  and hostility towards the Armenian people and the Armenian Church.

"Having surpassed himself in spreading lies, Pashazade stated that  the Armenian shrines operating in Armenia and the region for tens of  centuries, even the 1700-year-old Cathedral of Holy Etchmiadzin, are  located on "historical Azerbaijani lands" and that Armenians had  "appropriated" these territories. Pashazade concludes his series of  absurd statements by presenting the Armenian Apostolic Church as a  threat to the countries of the region. It seems ridiculous that the  spiritual leader of the people who received the ethnonym  "Azerbaijani" in the second half of the 1930s due to Soviet efforts  to build a state, is now attempting to challenge the historicity of  the Armenian people, whose thousand-year creative life and spiritual  and cultural heritage are generally recognized realities," Holy  Etchmiadzin emphasized.  Additionally,  the AAC called it surprising  that accusations against the Armenian nation of appropriating foreign  values are being made by a representative of a country that had  appropriated its name from another country (Iran - ed.) and people.

" Pashazade's speculations about the name "Russian and New  Nakhichevan Diocese" of the Armenian Apostolic Church are based on  the  same cheap style of work," the AAC added. The Armenian Church  recalled that the settlements near Rostov-on-Don were named "New  Nakhichevan" by decision of the authorities of Tsarist Russia, as a  sign of respect for the Armenians who had relocated to this area from  the historically Armenian Nakhichevan. "Such reprehensible  manifestations of hostility and falsification, which are constantly  present in the public statements of the spiritual leader of  Azerbaijan, are evidence of the reality that Azerbaijan itself, as  Pashazade says, poses a threat to its neighboring countries in the  region.  And, finally, it is necessary to declare once and for all  that lies and falsifications can never be transformed into truth, no  matter how frequently and fervently they are repeated,"  the Mother  See of Holy Etchmiadzin concluded.