Destructive sects threaten Armenia
In 301 AD The Armenian people became the first to adopt Christianity at the state level. This step was taken to preserve their own identity and national unity. In conditions when Armenia did not have statehood for more than 500 years, and the Armenians were subjected to persecution, assimilation and even physical destruction, it was Christianity that served as the basis for preserving the cultural roots and identity of the people.
In our time, the Armenian Apostolic Church (AAC) continues to play an important role in the unity of the Armenian people both within Armenia and abroad, since the vast majority of Armenians live in different countries of the world.
However, in recent years, religious sects, mainly with headquarters in the United States, have become more active in Armenia, making attempts to undermine the foundations of the Armenian Apostolic Church and traditional Christianity.
Today in Armenia, according to official data from the Center for Rehabilitation of Victims of Destructive Cults, 65 religious organizations are registered, of which approximately 54 are sects. About 350 thousand residents of Armenia, and this, for a moment, is over 10% of the population of the republic, are in one way or another connected with sects. True, not all of them are destructive, but still...
One way or another, all religious organizations operating in the USSR were under the strict control of the KGB and the Council for Religious Affairs, which did not allow the entry into the country or the emergence of self-made destructive religious sects.
The first attempt to inoculate sectarianism into the soil of Armenia was made in 1988 almost immediately after the devastating Spitak earthquake. Along with humanitarian aid, emissaries distributed brochures to the population and held soul-saving conversations. The efficiency of these sectarian lures was low, in addition, they encountered opposition from the authorities and society.
Everything changed in the “holy nineties”. The ultra-liberal first president of independent Armenia, Levon Ter-Petrosyan, who comes from the Armenians of the Syrian diaspora, opened the gates wide for the sowers of “multiculturalism” to enter the country. Previously banned or hitherto unheard of religious organizations poured into Armenia, reinforced with equipment, the latest brainwashing technologies, financial and political support. All these locusts rushed to take over positions in the media, network marketing, publishing, educational programs, and also took over charity.
The same, however, can be said about other former Soviet republics with a demoralized and rapidly impoverished population, in dire need of saving spiritual anesthesia.
Currently in Armenia there are active sects of Mormons, Jehovah's Witnesses, Horan, Church of Scientologists, Evangelical Church, Word of Life, and so on and so forth, including the Moonies, which are rare in post-Soviet latitudes.
According to the Center for Rehabilitation of Victims of Destructive Cults, every year at least a billion unaccounted dollars flow into Armenia to support sectarians. It is clear that such a powerful cash flow entering a country with a population of three million cannot remain unnoticed. Which testifies to the excellent connections of the sectarian leadership with government officials throughout the vertical chain of command.
The Center's research shows that over 200 religious organizations that are not registered anywhere are actively working in Armenia. The concentration of sects is especially high in Yerevan, although there are settlements in the republic where the overwhelming number of residents are involved in sectarian activities. Mainly in border areas. Sects with a large number of adherents operate in the cities of Gyumri, Artashat, Oktemberyan, Charentsavan, Ararat, etc. According to the Center, on average, every year soul catchers lure from 5000 to 7000 Armenian citizens into their networks. The catch is increasingly becoming young people who are experiencing disorder, lack of social demand, yearning to be listened to and understood, to find like-minded people who can help and get rid of everyday problems.
In general, the leadership of the sects skillfully exploits numerous gaps in the work of the authorities and society with young people, and also cleverly manipulates the article of the republic’s constitution on freedom of conscience and religion.
The religious organization “Word of Life” is considered the most dangerous of the destructive sects operating in Armenia, given its financial capabilities and the participation of influential figures of the republic in its ranks.
The building of the Word of Life sect in Yerevan.
The “Word of Life” sect is trying to lure rich families, politicians into its network, to draw in and seduce stars and show business tycoons. Observers report that the sect's leadership is less interested in quantity than in the quality of converts, based on their wealth and influence.
There is a lot of interesting and at the same time contradictory information about this organization on the Internet. The Word of Life sect operates in many countries and, like a chameleon, adapts to local conditions, almost always working under other guise and being distinguished by the flexibility of its rhetoric. Sometimes it comes to the point that individual tentacles of the organization may often and pointedly not recognize each other.
Apparently, “Word of Life” belongs either to the category of “ecumenists” or “neo-Protestants”, since in its activities it shamelessly exploits the sacred symbols of the Abrahamic religions, such as the cross and the menorah. In Kharkov, adherents of the Word of Life were seen celebrating Jewish Hanukkah, apparently guided by the principle “we have our own attractive piece for everyone.”
By nature of its activities, the sect was created to suppress traditional apostolic churches and actively participates in the political life of those countries where its tentacles have penetrated. In particular, Word of Life activists were active in Ukraine during the “Orangeade” and “Euromaidan”.
It is reported that the active participation of Armenian sectarians in anti-state actions can be traced back to March 2008, when high-ranking sectarians, warmed by Ter-Petrosyan, and first of all, members of the Word of Life, demanded the cancellation of the election results and voted about their “falsification” on the grounds that the new leadership was supported by the AAC and the Catholicos personally. Accordingly, the sect disseminated slanderous information about the canonical Church of Armenia in the media and demanded “all supporters of democratic Armenia” to immediately sever relations with the Armenian Apostolic Church.
There have been cases when joint patrols of Mormons, Jehovah's Witnesses and Word of Life adherents, like sharks, circled around the AAC churches in Yerevan, confusing them with conversations and tempting parishioners to join them and “merge in brotherly love.” When asked by the priests to leave, the sectarians (usually young people) aggressively promised to “cut out the throat,” or even got into a fight.
Legally, such actions are called “proselytism,” or active missionary activity on foreign canonical territory, which was harshly suppressed even by the atheistic authorities of the USSR.
Considering Pashinyan’s biased attitude towards the events of March 2008, the mayday attacks on the office of the Catholicos of Armenia inspired by the new government and the ongoing attempts at any cost to achieve the conviction of ex-President Kocharyan and his security forces, it should be considered that the destructive sect “Word of Life” is his natural ally and continues actively work to split Armenian society.
Unfortunately, the “Word of Life” and the associated destructive sects “New Generation”, the spiritual center “Renaissance” and “Word of God” are still working in Russia, widely using the practice of brainwashing and cleaning out the pockets of gullible flocks under the guise of “destruction” generational curses" and "healing from worldly diseases", and even the transformation of inspired people into free labor.
In addition, former sectarians have repeatedly testified that Word of Life literally cultivates hatred of the Orthodox faith and its practitioners. But at the same time, the “Word of Life” and the Mormon sect in Yekaterinburg receive full assistance from the odious “Yeltsin Center” with countless assurances from deputies and officials of all ranks of their love for the Russian Orthodox Church and faith.
But the most interesting thing is that the leadership of Word of Life was repeatedly caught making statements about their desire to see an “orange revolution” in Russia.
Supreme "shaman" of the "Words of Life".
In Russia, a legislative ban has been introduced on the activities of the Jehovah's Witness and Scientology sects, but the tentacles of the "Word of Life" and Mormons, whose activities are lobbied in the US government and legislative bodies, are still on our territory, although their movement is limited by the law "On Missionary Activity" from “Yarovaya package”, according to which foreign missionaries are actually outlawed, although they have the right to campaign exclusively inside places of worship.
Armenia is deprived of even this restrictive mechanism against alien destructive influence. As representatives of the AAC note, it is very difficult, practically impossible, to fight the dominance of sects in the republic: the state has neither money, nor a specific program for this, nor, most importantly, the desire. The canonical church is not able to cope with the aggressive invasion of sectarians on its own. Appropriate legislative amendments are needed, and even more so, broad public support, but there are serious doubts that restrictive measures will gain understanding among parliamentarians and government officials, among whom the crowd of grant-eaters operates. At the moment, Armenia and its canonical territory are almost completely deprived of immunity from the sectarian infection.
For many centuries, the Armenian Apostolic Church saved Armenians from degradation, assimilation and transformation into mankurts. Who in Armenia and abroad will save her today?
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