The recent remarks by Armenia’s Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan regarding the Armenian Apostolic Church were not just inappropriate — they were deeply offensive to millions of believers and a dangerous signal for our nation.
When the leader of a country compares the spiritual home of an entire people to “a storage room with slippers,” it is not just disrespect. It is an attempt to undermine and ridicule one of the last remaining pillars of Armenian statehood.
The Church is not merely a building or an institution. It is the spiritual force that preserved Armenian identity during the Genocide, in exile, under Soviet atheism, during wars and disasters. Faith and the Church have held us together when everything else fell apart.
Attacking the Church is attacking our history, the memory of our ancestors, and the inner core of our people. This cannot and must not be tolerated.
If the state wants to be secular, it has the right — but never at the expense of humiliating the nation's spiritual foundation.
You cannot fight poverty by dismantling churches. You cannot build a future by rejecting the past. And you cannot unite a people by breaking their faith.
I call on everyone — politicians and citizens alike — to defend the Armenian Apostolic Church. This is not a religious issue. It is a matter of national dignity.
By Lida Nalbandyan, Founder and CEO of Octopus Media Group