Father Sebeos Ghalachian was due to lead the ceremony at an Armenian church in the Russian city of Nizhny Novgorod earlier this week. In an interview with 168.am circulated on Friday, Ghalachian confirmed reports that he cancelled it after finding out that the lawmaker, Narek Grigorian, was chosen as the godfather. He said he told the child’s parents to pick another godfather who respects the supreme head of the Armenian Apostolic Church as well as its rules and traditions.
“They consider the Armenian Church a den of terrorists, they consider Armenian bishops terrorists and keep them under arrest. Did I have the right to allow that so-called deputy to bear the honor that a godfather bears in the Armenian Church?” explained the parish priest.
Ghalachian claimed that Grigorian responded to the ban with insults and threats directed at the Catholicos.
“He told me that he will grab His Holiness by the neck and throw him out of the Patriarchate,” he said.
Armenia -Father Sebeos Ghalachian.
Grigorian, who earlier defended Pashinian’s campaign and even questioned Garegin’s faith in God, confirmed the incident when he spoke to RFE/RL’s Armenian Service later in the day.
“I called [Ghalachian] the devil who doesn’t want the child to be baptized,” said the lawmaker who was actively involved in a recent brawl on the Armenian parliament floor. “And I said then that if there is a parliament deputy from the Civil Contract [ruling party] or another person who comes to be baptized and some priest decides who can become a godfather and who will not be baptized, I will punish those people.”
When asked what that “punishment” could be, he said he would generate “public outrage” against such priests and/or organize protests against them.
Pashinian has been pressuring the top clergy and Garegin in particular to resign, saying that they have had secret sex affairs in breach of their vows of celibacy. His detractors say that he is simply trying to please Azerbaijan and/or neutralize a key source of opposition to his unilateral concessions to Armenia’s arch-foe. They have denounced Pashinian’s campaign as illegal, arguing that the church’s separation from the state is guaranteed by the Armenian constitution.
Pashinian threatened on June 26 to forcibly remove Garegin from the church’s Echmiadzin headquarters if the Catholicos continues to ignore his demands. Security forces raided the Mother See the next morning in a bid to arrest Archbishop Mikael Ajapahian. But they failed to do that after meeting with fierce resistance from hundreds of angry priests and laymen.
Ajapahian surrendered to investigators several hours after the unprecedented raid condemned by the Armenian opposition and many public figures. He was charged with calling for a violent regime change.
Pashinian indicated on July 7 that Armenia’s National Security Service and other law-enforcement agencies must be able to raid the Mother See again. He pledged the next day to personally lead its “liberation.”