Harutyun Agha-Sargsyan, president of the Pan-Armenian Council for the Protection of the Armenian Church, made a statement regarding Nikol Pashinyan’s remarks against the Armenian Church in the European Parliament.

The statement says:

“From the podium of the European Parliament, Nikol Pashinyan carried out an open and brazen attack against the strongest pillar of Armenian statehood, the Armenian Apostolic Holy Church. Instead of protecting the interests of the country, he used that high pulpit for the insidious purpose of defiling national sanctities and degrading the Church in the eyes of the enemy.

This was not just another political slip or ignorance. this was a direct, deliberate and treacherous blow to the two-thousand-year-old spiritual backbone of the Armenian people. When the appointed head of the country declares his own Church to foreigners as a nest of conspiracies and a security threat, he ceases to be just an opponent. he goes directly to the service in the camp of those who annihilated the Armenian identity.

The Armenian Church is not a den of agents, as the adventurers who sold their souls to foreigners try to represent. The Armenian Church is the guarantor of the existence of the Armenian people, its memory, blood and non-negotiable sanctuary. Any person who throws mud on that sanctity in international courts commits the gravest state and national crime, undermining the spiritual security and protection of the entire nation.

This shameful campaign should be considered in one single, destructive chain. when the statehood and sovereignty of Armenia are consistently destroyed, the turn has come to the last citadel of the people’s resistance, the Church. A program of national dismantling is imposed on our people with the false and disgusting packaging of “peace” and “democracy”. This attack against the Armenian Church is not an internal political dispute, this is a nationalistic war against the Armenian species.

We strongly condemn and consider unacceptable this anti-church, anti-national behavior of Nikol Pashinyan. Selling national sanctuaries in order to find external sponsors for attacks on the Church is a pathetic and shameful move.

Let everyone clearly record and finally understand that the Armenian Church is not a political toy of the rulers of the day and will never become their sacrificial lamb. Whoever dares to lay a dirty hand on the Mother Church will receive the blow of the righteous anger of the Armenian people and the merciless judgment of history.

Pashinyan’s statements against the Armenian Church in the European Parliament are just the peak of national shame.

This is not just a fight between the clergy and the laity. this is a sacred struggle for our existence, Armenian gene and dignity. And in this struggle, conciliation and silence are tantamount to suicide.

We will not be silent. We will not allow it.”

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