If we abandon our values, we will end up in dustbin of history — Archimandrite Shahe Ananyan

Turkey still has a legal norm under which the state approves the Armenian Patriarch as a representative of the Armenian community, Archimandrite Shahe Ananyan, Dean of the Gevorgyan Theological Seminary, told Alpha News in response to a question about whether the Armenian authorities are trying to adopt the Turkish model and apply it in Armenia on the advice of Turkish President Recep Erdogan.

“A similar practice exists in Azerbaijan: the head of the Caucasus Muslim Board is approved by the state. As far as I know, there is no such practice in Iran and Georgia. If we abandon the values that we proclaimed when we called Armenia a ‘bastion of democracy’, then we are doomed to end up in the dustbin of history.

If we change these values now and the state gets the final say in the matter of electing the head of the Church, then it turns out that we are doing the same thing that dictators of various totalitarian regimes—such as Hitler and others—attempted to do. If this is the direction they wish to take, they also need to understand what the Diaspora is saying. And the Diaspora will certainly not agree with this step,” said Archimandrite Shahe Ananyan.