YEREVAN (Realist English). The Armenian government has a positive attitude towards the project of erecting a statue of Christ near Yerevan, Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said at a meeting of the Government of the Republic on July 7.
The project of erecting the statue was proposed by the company “Multi Group” of a major Armenian entrepreneur, leader of the non-parliamentary party “Prosperous Armenia” Gaghik Tsarukyan. The monument is proposed to be installed on Mount Atis, near the town of Abovyan, Kotayk region.
The Editor-in-Chief of Realist Information Agency Sarkis Tsaturyan believes that “God needs not statues from the Armenians to worship Him, but a living faith in Him, which the Armenians have exchanged for the Golden Calf”:
“The Armenian media report on plans to erect the world’s largest statue of Jesus Christ. But I condemn their laudatory odes. God needs not statues from the Armenians to worship Him, but a living faith in Him, which the Armenians have exchanged for the Golden Calf.
As long as the Armenian ruling class and part of our people worship money, no statues of Christ will help Armenians. The erection of idols in the conditions when the majority of the people live in poverty is a manifestation of paganism. You are not thinking about the people, but you are feeding your ego, which has already grown to the scale of Antarctica.
If the author of this project and people like him really want to benefit the people, then let them build free hospitals and free schools for people. You don’t want to build them? Then introduce allowances for teachers and doctors who receive humiliatingly low salaries in the public sector. Compete with each other not in vanity, but in who of you will spend more money on people who cure and educate our people.
The trials were sent down to our people in order to bring them back to faith in One God, and not to erect statues in the midst of poverty and unbelief.”
According to the author’s idea, the height of the statue of Jesus will be 33 meters, which is equal to the number of years he lived. The total height of the sculpture together with the pedestal will be 77 meters. This will make it the tallest statue of Christ in the world. Now this status belongs to the sculpture of Christ the Tsar in Poland — 52 meters, the height of the famous monument in Rio de Janeiro is 38 meters.
