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35 year-old Armen Margaryan is a believer of Armenian Apostolic Church. His belief towards God has a history of 12 years. Before that Armen and his family did not believe in God and they were very far from Armenian Apostolic Church. After an incident happened in their family they began thinking about God and his wonders.

In 1993, Armen who lived in the town of Ijevan was baptized and began to serve Armenian Apostolic Church. His wife is also a follower of this Church and as Armen says they made a promise before God and will never diverge from the faith of Armenian Apostolic Church. With the aim of strengthening his belief in God and preaching the Gospel Armen was admitted into the brotherhood (in Armenian called “Yekeghecasirats Yeghbayrakcutyun”) belonging to Armenian Apostolic Church. Armen is a psalm-reader. He says that you don’t have to be a consecrated clergyman. There are no clergymen in the brotherhood. You need to be baptized and accept the faith of Armenian Apostolic Church, attach importance to the Gospel, pray and live with spiritual life in order to become a member of this brotherhood. The brotherhood was founded in 1945 in Armenia. It is considered the indispensable part of Armenian Apostolic Church which preaches, visits believers, prints booklets and brochures. The mission of the brotherhood is to remain faithful to the Gospel and to serve God. It is considered a little brook within Apostolic Church. The brotherhood is not a legal entity “there is no need to be so”. Armen Margaryan says that many people would like them to be registered as a separate body which would be speculated in the future.

“Today helping the church is our important work”-says Armen. His organization is going to publish a booklet which will tell about the brotherhood. It will also present information about Haji Yeghish Yeghisabet Labashyan, who made wonders with her prayers and gathered people around her.

The believers of Armenian Apostolic Church are of the opinion that the church has its special place for preaching the Gospel, freeing people from their sins and keeping them away from them.

It doesn’t matter for Armen that this or that Armenian belongs to some religious organization, he considers them his relation.

“This person heard, believed in that way”-he thinks and says that they go in a wrong way from the spiritual point of view. Though Armenian Apostolic Church has no cooperation with other religious organizations, its attitude cannot be considered hostile. Simply, as Armen says, the church should be reasonable in this changed period. We should be flexible as “people can listen a little, if you interest him he will continue listening if not, you will be boring”. On the other hand, if someone is interested in something then he will overcome the obstacles. Armen Margaryan brings as an example Old Armenian.

“If a person loves a little, makes a step, he will learn it easily. The most difficult is the overcoming the first obstacle”. But for him explanations and comments of church rituals are important. It’s a matter of time and clergymen will make reforms. Teaching the history of Armenian Apostolic Church in schools is a positive step, for which teachers got trainings. But what is the reason that Armenian believer goes away from his traditional church?
“Maybe because other religious organizations approach people better. Perhaps, their contacts, their kindness and being prepared are the reason”-thinks the psalm-reader of Armenian Apostolic Church. At the same time, the problem has different levels and to say that in Ijevan the problem is the existence of Jehovah’s Witnesses is not right. He considers that increasing number of religious directions is like something you fill some encyclopedia data, when many people does not realize or do not know those names. Maybe Armenia will benefit from the social-economic viewpoint in the condition of a number of religious organizations. Anyhow, morality is more important.

“What do we need?”- Armen asks and hesitates: “We will become a prosperous but immoral country. If our nation decides that we will remain corrupted, immoral, then let it be like that”. But isn’t immorality far from the ideology of other religious organizations? Strong families and solidarity are important for them as well, they also profess moral values. The representative of Armenian Apostolic Church is suspicious of the correspondence of the faith and behaviour of the religious organizations. It means that though other religious organizations have clear ideology, they not always realize them. And the conditions that they qualify one another and they consider the existence of each other useless, will never help cooperation between religious organizations.

“Now it is the situation when we think of many things which does not correspond to reality. It is good if we sit and talk, but it is the matter of upper structures”-Armen is sure. They are the leaders of religious organizations in this case, whose organizations not always can have any role in civil society. Armen thinks that having various religious organizations does not mean to form civil society. In this case he proposes religious directions to be just a citizen who should be concerned about the problems of his own community.

In case of using the well-known Bible principle “Caesar’s to Caesar, God’s to God” we may keep the balance. Otherwise giving way to extremes brings to understanding the Gospel in a wrong way. As the psalm-reader says, the question is in the way of thinking.
Our national trouble is the imitation of every bad thing. On the other hand, every Armenian imagines himself a king. This is the reason why in such a small country there are so many political parties and religious organizations. According to Armen Margaryan they create problems for national security. Moreover, they are problems destructing the security of the church.

Naira Bulghadaryan