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LATEST ACT OF HANDING OVER STATE STAGED IN MOSCOW
Hakob Badalyan
Comments - Tuesday, 17 September 2013, 22:10
The Customs Union of Government and Church In Moscow the biggest
cathedral outside Armenia was opened. It has an administrative
building, a hotel, a dining hall. Whether the largeness or the Customs
Union was the reason, Serzh Sargsyan also attended the opening of the
church. The Armenian cathedral in Moscow was built with the donations
of "church-loving Armenians". The Russia-based Armenian rich people
are meant. It is not clear what "church-loving" means. Do they love
the church as a building or as a religious institution? If the answer
is religious institution, I wonder how these "church-loving Armenians"
imagine their role in the life of the nation where the state has de
jure been the key institution over two decades. However, in the second
decade of the state opening churches continues to be treated as a
national event, and huge churches continue to be built. In other
words, in the second decade of the state the Armenian people or
their political and business elite come together around cathedrals,
not secular institutions of the state. The same thing took place in
Armenia when Gagik Tsarukyan built a huge church in Abovyan where the
government and opposition prayed side by side. This is touching indeed
but the Armenian people, the citizens of Armenia and the Diaspora, as
a potential subject of global competition, need secular institutions
providing premises for development rather than touching scenes. They
need institutions where unity is not a physical act involving
people coming together at a place and smiling to each other or at
least not swearing at each other but a process involving discussion,
criticism and opposition that leads to generation of ideas and contains
mechanisms of recognition of its result, capable of legitimacy. The
state is the most viable and competitive model of national unity,
whereas Armenians continue to subject the state, sometimes subtly,
sometimes roughly, to the church. This causes mutation of both
the state and church. As a result, neither of them develops and is
modernized to suit the time. Meanwhile, the consequences of the problem
are acknowledged. The problem has nothing to do with the modernization
of the state or the church. Or it is related to the extent when
modernization itself supposes new requirements and criteria for the
"church-loving Armenians" in Armenia and the worldwide Armenians and
the society. The "church-loving Armenians" have not reached the mental
and moral level needed for those criteria, therefore modernization
exposes them to danger because it may raise essentially the level
of society's requirements and disturb the atmosphere of tolerance,
leading to new requirements for the elites.
The goal is to maintain the current level at the cost of stagnation of
the church and using the church as a private or group lifebelt. The
problem is clear - the society must not hinder the "church-loving
Armenians" to determine their own destinies. When the state is
attending this issue, questions occur which require answers.
Meanwhile, over the past decades or centuries the Armenian Apostolic
Church has become a mechanism of avoidance of concrete answers, which
is lying at the heart of the lucrative deal between the government
and the church. Logically, the role and importance of the belt is
growing in Moscow where the destinies of "church-loving elites" are
determined. Since the church replaces the state de facto as a leading
institution, it means adjusting itself to the de facto structure of
the state where Moscow has reiterated its role of destiny shaper. The
church is one of the key symbols of this reality, and Moscow's role
would be psychologically weak unless it is enriched with one of the
key symbols of the reality.
http://www.lragir.am/index/eng/0/comments/view/30908
Hakob Badalyan
Comments - Tuesday, 17 September 2013, 22:10
The Customs Union of Government and Church In Moscow the biggest
cathedral outside Armenia was opened. It has an administrative
building, a hotel, a dining hall. Whether the largeness or the Customs
Union was the reason, Serzh Sargsyan also attended the opening of the
church. The Armenian cathedral in Moscow was built with the donations
of "church-loving Armenians". The Russia-based Armenian rich people
are meant. It is not clear what "church-loving" means. Do they love
the church as a building or as a religious institution? If the answer
is religious institution, I wonder how these "church-loving Armenians"
imagine their role in the life of the nation where the state has de
jure been the key institution over two decades. However, in the second
decade of the state opening churches continues to be treated as a
national event, and huge churches continue to be built. In other
words, in the second decade of the state the Armenian people or
their political and business elite come together around cathedrals,
not secular institutions of the state. The same thing took place in
Armenia when Gagik Tsarukyan built a huge church in Abovyan where the
government and opposition prayed side by side. This is touching indeed
but the Armenian people, the citizens of Armenia and the Diaspora, as
a potential subject of global competition, need secular institutions
providing premises for development rather than touching scenes. They
need institutions where unity is not a physical act involving
people coming together at a place and smiling to each other or at
least not swearing at each other but a process involving discussion,
criticism and opposition that leads to generation of ideas and contains
mechanisms of recognition of its result, capable of legitimacy. The
state is the most viable and competitive model of national unity,
whereas Armenians continue to subject the state, sometimes subtly,
sometimes roughly, to the church. This causes mutation of both
the state and church. As a result, neither of them develops and is
modernized to suit the time. Meanwhile, the consequences of the problem
are acknowledged. The problem has nothing to do with the modernization
of the state or the church. Or it is related to the extent when
modernization itself supposes new requirements and criteria for the
"church-loving Armenians" in Armenia and the worldwide Armenians and
the society. The "church-loving Armenians" have not reached the mental
and moral level needed for those criteria, therefore modernization
exposes them to danger because it may raise essentially the level
of society's requirements and disturb the atmosphere of tolerance,
leading to new requirements for the elites.
The goal is to maintain the current level at the cost of stagnation of
the church and using the church as a private or group lifebelt. The
problem is clear - the society must not hinder the "church-loving
Armenians" to determine their own destinies. When the state is
attending this issue, questions occur which require answers.
Meanwhile, over the past decades or centuries the Armenian Apostolic
Church has become a mechanism of avoidance of concrete answers, which
is lying at the heart of the lucrative deal between the government
and the church. Logically, the role and importance of the belt is
growing in Moscow where the destinies of "church-loving elites" are
determined. Since the church replaces the state de facto as a leading
institution, it means adjusting itself to the de facto structure of
the state where Moscow has reiterated its role of destiny shaper. The
church is one of the key symbols of this reality, and Moscow's role
would be psychologically weak unless it is enriched with one of the
key symbols of the reality.
http://www.lragir.am/index/eng/0/comments/view/30908