Yerevan, Baku dictators reach consensus on AAC

ArmInfo.  A consensus has been formed between the dictators of Yerevan and Baku on the issue of the Armenian Apostolic Church, which they are promoting with joint efforts. This was written on his Facebook page by Tigran Abrahamyan, a member of the National Assembly of the Republic of Armenia from the opposition faction With Honor. 

The deputy points to the fact that the Azerbaijani press constantly  writes with delight about the attacks of the Prime Minister of the  Republic of Armenia Nikol Pashinyan on the Mother See of Holy  Etchmiadzin.  "On the one hand, it is obvious that Azerbaijan is  providing services to the Armenian ruler, encouraging and promoting  his steps, and on the other hand, it is revealing its internal fears  and concerns regarding the role, influence and national positions of  the Armenian Apostolic Church," Abrahamyan writes.

He added that in the eyes of Azerbaijan, the AAC is presented as a  hotbed of revanchism, which should be understood as the Church's  intolerance of the policy of capitulation and defeat on the part of  official Yerevan. Azerbaijan also understands very well that it will  be very difficult to deprive Armenia of viability without taking the  Armenian Apostolic Church out of the game, and one of the main  hotbeds of resistance must be constantly "held under fire," the  politician noted.

On May 29, at a government meeting, Pashinyan said that Armenian  churches resemble "closets filled with junk." The next day, he  published a harsh post on social media, in which he used rude  language towards the hierarchs of the AAC and accused one of the  archbishops of sexual promiscuity. At the same time, the prime  minister demanded that all priests who violated their vow of celibacy  be defrocked. The prime minister's wife, Anna Hakobyan, made similar  attacks, calling the patriarch "the main mafioso" and those who  criticized the "defrocking" of churches "the country's main  pedophiles." These statements provoked a sharp reaction from the  clergy. Amid the scandal, the prime minister proposed changing the  procedure for electing the head of the AAC so that the state would  have a decisive vote in the elections, and candidates would undergo  an ethics check.