Yesterday, another scandal involving Nikol Pashinyan took place in the capital. Last week, he became the center of noise in the Yerevan Metro, when he met a woman from Artsakh and called her “runaways”, and yesterday he was already in St. Anne’s Church.

There was a liturgy in the church dedicated to Palm Sunday, and Nikol Pashinyan decided that as part of his campaign, he could enter the church hand in hand, pushing everyone forward. The church was crowded, and Pashinyan’s bodyguards, pushing people, made way for the latter to go and stand in the first row. People got nervous. As a result, a stampede began in the Church. Currently, 3 people have been arrested in connection with the case, 2 of them are twin brothers, high school students.

Rev. Vrtanes Baghalyan, spiritual pastor of Saint Hovhannes Church in Byurakan, at 168.am detailed how an official should behave in the church, or how a citizen should behave in the church in general, especially if he enters the church in the middle of the liturgy.

“If the person is an official and he is accompanied by security, it is appropriate that he should attend the liturgy on time. First of all, it would be correct for the church to be aware of the arrival of the official in question, so that a place can be reserved for him in the church so that he can go and sit, and for that it is desirable that he should be present from the beginning of the liturgy. And it is not appropriate for a government official to go late to the liturgy and then create a commotion in the church. And in case of being late for the liturgy, decency requires them to be patient and wait, rather than the security guards clearing the way, punching people, etc., Father Vrtanes Baghalyan noted.

According to the cleric, if Nikol Pashinyan wanted to attend the liturgy, he could have visited the Cathedral, or Saint Gregory the Illuminator Church in Yerevan, which is a bigger church, and there would be no need to create a commotion.

“Well, if a person arrived late to the liturgy, it would be desirable to at least stay until the end, if you just have to go in and out, then there is no point in pushing people to get there and stand in front of them. He could have lit his candle at the candlestick, prayed and left quietly, instead of being late, pushing him to go forward, looking at the school-aged boy, knowing full well what attitude a part of our society has towards his anti-church attitude. Knowing all this well, he should not have provoked. If you go somewhere and insult the family’s grandparents, father and mother, it is possible, isn’t it, that the children will retaliate? If you address the Most Reverend Patriarch by the name of a priest, you are not respectful, you may be disrespected by ordinary believers. The attitude towards the 2 arrested brothers was not improper, even more towards Gevorg Gevorgyan,” Mr. Vrtanes added.

It is also unacceptable for a priest to use disproportionate force against a citizen in the church, when they hit a child and then arrest him.

“That person entered the church to conduct an election campaign, which he did not have the right to do. I have not seen members of other parties come to the church and do pre-election campaign. There were so many people in the church, except for them, no one wore party symbols. That person, together with his security officers, obstructed the performance of the ritual ceremony in the church, which is criminally prosecuted. Of course, in this regard, we do not hope that he will be held responsible for this,” emphasized our interlocutor.

Father Vrtanes also recalled the incident that happened between NA Speaker Alen Simonyan and a citizen the other day, where the citizen approached Alen Simonyan and asked if they could talk, after which the NA Speaker said, “Take him here.” The priest considers such speech of an official unacceptable, saying that he has no right to call a citizen “this”.

“Such officials should not be in our society.

The former officials would never have allowed such behavior in the church,” emphasized Father Vrtanes Baghalyan.

—