This issue is to demolish or not to demolish

The demolition or the preservation of the Summer Hall of the Moscow Cinema House has ceased to be a subject of a narrow discussion. It now has become the topic of a general public discussion. New groups are created based on the ongoing discussion of the ideas. In other words, the society livened up. The buzz of the discussion shows the essence of the character of various persons.

What occurred as a matter of fact? What happened was that the state and the church secretly agreed on this issue and put the society in front of the accomplished fact. This was reminiscent of the situations after April 2009 when the sudden downfall of the currency exchange took place.

I do not want to go into the probable details of the agreement as the human imagination may expand on various developments such as ‘You do it for me and I will do it for you’ and the other development may be based on the fact our Prime Minister is an ardent believer himself. The church in turn tries to benefit from his dedication.

The motivation is not as important as the result is. The implementation of this project was kept somehow within certain procedures. The signature of the Ministry of Culture is available on the document. The opinion of the experts is not that important. The specifications that allow the building to be or not be within the list of the protected monuments are too obscure in the law. Should anyone wish, the desired interpretations can be inferred from the reading of the law. The desire in this particular case is huge.

An additional patch of land in the center of the city is a welcome bite for anyone. In this particular case the wishes are totally justified. Since the wishes are there, any explanation can be invented. For example, being very ardent believers and god-fearing persons, the owners of the Moscow Cinema House themselves asked to accept the donation in order in a due way to demonstrate their true dedication to the chuch.

This is not really important here. What is important here is the demagogy with which the Church advances its perception of the alleged extreme negligence of the society who suddenly has waken from the eternal sleep.

The representatives of the civic society who go against the demolition of the building do not omit an occasion to emphasize at the beginning and at the end of their explanations that they are not against the Church. They insist that they are against the destruction of one layer of the city and the construction of another one at the expense of the old.

However, the arguments are meaningless for the Church. It assumes to be an absolute leader of its flock and sits on the throne and knows that it enjoys the people’s trust while the intentions of the architects are fundamentally honest.

However, the church has its priorities and the American benefactor points his finger at the particular patch of land.

The church sends to the public discussions such individuals who mildly speaking are engaged in the counter church advocacy. I am somehow sure that the issue of the Hall is the topic of heated debates and disagreements in the church too.  It is not possible to think that all the spiritual people have the mentality of a butcher or of an artel member.

The representative of the Public Council himself confessed that he does not have anything against the opponent of the church building. He gave a very considerate account of the activities of the government that became the basis for the infamous changes in the list of the protected monuments.

The priest Komitas called his flock the godless people while theatrically holding his hands towards to the heavens. He called on god to come to rescue his people who were against the sacred.

What does this mean? This means the following if you are against my decisions, you are against me. If I decide that the church building should be raised at the place of the Summer Hall then that should come true. I represent the word of god on earth and going against me means going against god. If you are against this, you are against the sacred. The united opinion of the society he qualifies as an order from elsewhere. It was precisely what father Mkhitar Aloyan said.

These events carry very dangerous prerequisites because they presuppose that the church commenced its old feudal activities even though on a smaller scale. One should pay attention to the fact that it says that the people demand what was ours. It is laughable since for centuries the country did not have its own statehood and the church owned the country and had in possession huge land patches. Does this mean one day it may demand to be the government too? Let us think well. Does this remind us of anything? I do not say that there are possibilities for the practical implementation of such plans. This is an outcome of the past domination. The father Arshak confirmed this conclusion by stating that ‘The wishes, the intentions and the future of the Armenian people were with the church for many centuries.’ He does not want to consider at the same level the memories of just one generation both the present one and the clerical.’

Let us see the reverse side of the medal. The people, who commence the civic initiatives, depend on enthusiastic impulses and they do not want to see the hall to be demolished. Here the problem is tied precisely with the building and it is not just the fact that the building was once in the list of the protected monuments. The whole idea is that the people are against the demolition of the building and the opponents make use of the argument that the building was in the list of protected monuments. People argue that there is some other patch of land just 30 meters away from that place. Why do not you show that place to the benefactor? Why should the intact building be destroyed?

We can even leave aside the fact that the demolition of the building can be equally used for money laundering as it can be done via the construction of a new church building. We are now at the other side of the medal.

Like in the process of many civic initiatives there always some people who make use of the public idea for their own private benefit. Those can be examples of making good PR, or settling scores with someone, or reaching some other forth level purpose.

Some people are, however, taken by surprise at the fact that the idea has brought such an architect and people together. ‘This means that something is wrong here,’ a man starts thinking and then attempts to look for other hidden motivations. It is exactly the same way as when the context of the protocols is used to find out another hidden meaning.

When a man begins to invent out, then anything can be an outcome. It is especially the case because there is plenty of rich soil for that. Indeed, there are people who do work for some obscure purposes. It is only natural that such purpose may unite various people. Some other man might make use of the words in such a manner that the person who uttered them would not catch the direction in which the wind blows.

Around 23000 citizens are united for the cause of the initiative today. They are against the demolition. There can be men who joined the initiative because they are also against the church or because they have other purposes too. It is also a demagogy to discuss or to debate their motivations too. It is not important who and for what purposes joined the work. It is important that the work should be advanced. Some will make a public show or they will make a career or perhaps they will redress their past mistakes.

It is not essential if the person should take close the work to his/her heart. The emotional approaches only impede the work to be done. To bring to light any idea, one needs a cool heart and an organizational talent. It is otherwise called ‘management’.

To overcome the obstacle, one should not ridicule the decision of the government or condemn the church. The cause will not benefit from that. The serious men should be able to achieve the situation when the church and government sit at the negotiations table and try to understand how to resolve the problem. They must be able to find a solution so that all the angles of the triangle of the society, the church and the government should remain satisfied. They are not the enemies to each other. The three make the country of Armenia.