Samvel Karapetyan blasts Armenian leadership over defrocked priest-led service

mprisoned businessman and philanthropist Samvel Karapetyan has hit out at Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and his team for endorsing a liturgy celebrated by defrocked priest Aram Asatryan at the Hovhannavank Monastery on Sunday. Below is the full statement Karapetyan issued on Monday.

“Dear compatriots,

The events of yesterday and the past days have come to prove my worst predictions.

A small group has shown that, in the most literal sense of the word, it is ready to trample over any sacred thing. For the sake of retaining power, these people committed acts unprecedented in the history of the Armenian people — attempting, in a hostile manner, to break the rites of the Armenian Apostolic Church and to besmirch the Holy Liturgy by their interference. In doing so, these authorities have taken a new “step” down the road toward national division and have earned the condemnation and anger of the entire nation.

One can be sure that this small group will not stop at this in its attempts to strike at and discredit our most important national institution, our Mother See. But they should know that we too will continue to defend our values and our sacred things, just as we did centuries ago, as we did yesterday, and as we will do tomorrow. No deprivation can halt the progress of our movement toward victory.

No imprisonment can break the will of today’s many political prisoners — Revered Archbishops Mikayel, Bagrat and Bishop Mkrtich, the dozens of people from Gyumri including Ruben Mkhitaryan, the Mer Dzevov (Our Way) movement’s Gyumri coordinator, and our other friends and colleagues — to live in a Armenia free from tyranny and foreign influence, guided by real Christian values, restored dignity, and prosperity.

We will do it our way.”