The Mother See of Holy Etchmiadzin has sent an invitation to Armenia’s top officials to attend the ceremonies of the blessing of the Holy Myron and the re-consecration of the Holy Etchmiadzin Cathedral, Archbishop Arshak Khachatryan stated at a press conference Tuesday.
“As of now, we do not have thorough responses. Only the president of the National Assembly gave a thorough response that he will not attend.
Why did we [i.e. the Armenian Apostolic Church] invite [them]? We also had doubts about whether or not to invite the authorities due to the current state of relations between the Church and the authorities. Taking into account that circumstance, the matter of the expediency of inviting the authorities was discussed at the highest level in the Church—at the meeting of the Supreme Spiritual Council. The meeting of the Supreme Spiritual Council came to the final conclusion that yes, the invitations shall be sent [to the authorities].
How to combine the positions of the Church to urge the authorities to resign and to send an invitation at the same time? I believe these matters should be clearly separated. Inviting to events, nationwide ceremonies should absolutely not be interpreted in the sense that the Church has abandoned its positions and is showing complete loyalty to the political line adopted by the authorities. The Church will continue to express its concerns and positions in all cases—when it is necessary,” Archbishop Khachatryan added.
To note, National Assembly Speaker Alen Simonyan had announced that he was leaving for Canada, and therefore could not attend the aforesaid ceremonies.
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