YEREVAN (Realist English). Catholicos of All Armenians His Holiness Garegin II received the Order of the Badge of Honor of the Russian Federation from the hands of Russian Ambassador Sergey Kopyrkin on the basis of a Decree of the Russian Federation signed by President Vladimir Putin.
Congratulations to the Holy Patriarch, about whom legends will still be made up, but for now they are trying to mess up at home.
Probably because the Catholicos remained silent when the Baku Diocese of the Russian Orthodox Church committed blasphemy against Orthodoxy and Christianity, marking the first anniversary of the victory of terrorists, banned in Russia, over the Armenians. Why didn’t he anathematize this sacrilege?
I am categorically against the politicization and privatization of religion, what the Baku diocese of the Russian Orthodox Church is doing. I consider this unacceptable, since the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict is territorial, but not religious in any way – this is a classic example of the national liberation struggle!
On November 8, 2021, in honor of the anniversary of the official Kremlin’s betrayal of its ally Armenia and the Armenian population of Nagorno-Karabakh, which was presented to the world as the defeat of Armenia in the war with Azerbaijan and Turkey, a solemn prayer service was held in the Baku diocese of the ROC; they sang Hosanna to the Muslim, usurper-Minisultan Aliyev – “… to the Supreme Commander-in-Chief Ilham Heydarovich Aliyev and his army…”, or rather, to his gang of robbers and terrorists from Islamic organizations banned in the Russian Federation, ISIL (an organization banned in the Russian Federation) and other terrorist organizations, among which there are many citizens of Azerbaijan. They were those who had killed Russian soldiers in Syria, demonstratively shot the Russian ambassador to Turkey, shot down a Russian helicopter on the Armenian territory, shot representatives of the indigenous peoples of Azerbaijan who did not want to fight against Armenians.
And the most disgusting, unworthy of a soldier: they cut off the heads not of the dead, but of the living peaceful Armenian residents of Artsakh. This is outrageous cynicism! Throughout the Muslim world, you will not find a country whose authorities publicly support a Christian country in an armed conflict with an Islamic country or will participate in a war on the side of Christians.
Meanwhile, the Kremlin rulers supported Muslim Turkish Azerbaijan in an aggressive war against Christian Armenia and Artsakh, and armed it to the teeth, knowing who this weapon would be directed against. The priests of the Russian Orthodox Church in the service of the Kremlin are not familiar with either the sense of Christian solidarity or elementary humanity. They are in the service of the Kremlin; the ROC, like the Kremlin, can do anything!
Will the Almighty forgive them, because they know what they are doing? And I’ll remember that. And I’ll tell my grandchildren about it. A Christian needs to pray, because without prayer they cannot find God (Mt. 7,7-8), but did the servants of the Baku Diocese of the ROC remember Christian humility and love for one’s neighbor when, with the knowledge and blessing of the Danilov Monastery, they performed a blasphemous prayer service on November 8 on the anniversary of the betrayal of Christians in Armenia by the Kremlin and the Russian Orthodox Church, wishing many years to a Muslim and his horde – the murderers of Orthodox Christians, and not only Armenians, but also Russians, Greeks, Assyrians and many others, expelled from their homes – appropriating their property.
In war as in war. But the war also has its own rules of attitude towards the enemy, which have always been followed and which the Turkish-Azerbaijani horde did not care about, playing football with the severed heads of dead enemy soldiers, slaughtering old men and women. Now the ROC praises these murderers and sings to them for many years in the Orthodox Church. You are wondering if the official policy of the ROC is compatible with Christianity.
But this whole story is being started with far-reaching consequences. Declaring all the temples of the Armenian Apostolic Church, the oldest of the Orthodox churches founded by the apostles of Christ themselves, Albanian, that is, attributing them to a non–existent church, since Caucasian Albanians, more precisely, their miraculously surviving Christian fragment – Udins are adepts of the AAC. Azerbaijan continues its policy of denying the centuries-old history of the Artsakh and “Azerbaijani” Armenians in general, denying their right to their homeland and to live on their land. And the Russian Orthodox Church and the Kremlin actively contribute to this, through the mouth of their president, who has declared that he personally guarantees the inviolability of Armenian shrines in the territory captured by the Azerbaijani Turks and handed over to them by the Russians during the 44-day war.
President Vladimir Putin, to the point and out of place, boasts of his country’s military history, calls for the preservation of monuments to Russian soldiers. Meanwhile, in the villages of Nagorno-Karabakh occupied by Azerbaijan, with the knowledge and by order of I. Aliyev, a friend of V. Putin, ancient churches and burials dating back to the 5th century are being desecrated; the graves of Russian soldiers and officers who died in the war with the Persians and the ancestors of V. Putin’s current friends are being desecrated in the cemetery near the Armenian monastery of Urekavank (Glho) in the village of Talish, also occupied by Azerbaijanis or Turks.
Sarukhan-bek, Melik Hovsep, Melik Beglyarov, the brave priest Ter-Mkrtich, General Shamir Khan are buried here. Shamir Khan was chief of staff of the Ermolov’s Russian army of, and later Griboyedov’s secretary and translator in Persia. He was also a participant in the drafting and signing of the Gulistan Treaty of 1813. All these princes were Armenians by origin, Christians and were officers of the Russian army. Immediately after the shameful surrender was signed on November 9, 2020, the largest rural monument in the USSR to the inhabitants of Talish village who fell in World War II was destroyed.
The Azerbaijani Turks are destroying even the memory of Russian and Soviet heroes, because they were not Turks. V. Putin threatens to send seven Egyptian troubles to those who desecrate monuments to Soviet soldiers in Europe and does not see what is happening on the territory of his ally Azerbaijan, in the zone of Russian influence. Or is it no longer a zone of influence of Russia? Have the keys to the third Rome, and with them the claims to Byzantine spiritual and cultural values, to the Byzantine inheritance, already been sold to the Turks? The Russian proverb may be right, according to which, if you scratch any Russian, a Tatar disguise will appear? Or does the Kremlin return to its Horde roots, together with its partner Erdoğan , turning Christian Armenia into a gateway yard while creating the Great Turan?
One of the pillars of Christianity is repentance. While the Russian Orthodox Church has not repented, a true Orthodox Christian should think about whether his prayer will reach the Lord in the church of the ROC, which actually acts as a persecutor of Orthodox Christians in the South Caucasus region. The choice is yours.
Realizing the abomination and immorality of their actions, they tried not to advertise the shameful prayer services of the Baku diocese of the ROC for the glory of the murderers of Christians, but you can’t hide an awl in a bag, and the horns of the devil are clearly visible behind the hoods of the “priests” of the ROC. Now you can’t say you didn’t know. The choice is yours. The Turks destroyed more than a million Greeks along with Armenians, half a million Assyrians, hundreds of thousands of Russian Molokans, Yezidis, creating a Turkish state on the bones of the exterminated indigenous peoples. One should always remember this when visiting the Russian Orthodox Church: once it also recognized the fact of the Genocide of Christians in Turkey and Azerbaijan, and now she sings hosanna to unrepentant murderers.
Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, that you shut up the Kingdom of heaven to men, for you do not enter yourself and do not allow those who want to enter. Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, that you eat widows’ houses and hypocritically pray for a long time: for that you will receive the greater condemnation. Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, that you circumvent the sea and the land in order to convert at least one; and when this happens, you make him a son of Hell, twice as bad as you (Mt. 23; 13-15.). This is what Christ said. Or is the Kremlin returning to its Horde roots, together with its partner Erdoğan , turning Christian Armenia into a gateway yard when creating the Great Turan.
This is not propaganda or agitation, but information for reflection for the servants of the churches of the ROC in Armenia. Before luring parishioners, first repent for the blasphemy committed by the Baku Diocese of the Russian Orthodox Church on November 8, 2021. Among those persecuted from Azerbaijan in 1988-92, Orthodox Greeks were expelled along with Armenians, and their homes and property were appropriated and robbed.
Eduard Polatov is Chairman of the patriotic organization “Talish – border Settlements”, Chairman of the Organization of Greeks of Armenia and Artsakh (since 1989)
