STATE – CHURCH – SOCIETY: ISSUES OF SPIRITUAL SECURITY
Gagik Terteryan

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27 October 2008

As it is known the first and foremost task of national security
is preservation of national system of values, and, first of all,
its spiritual component. At the same time, real spiritual values are
universal, and, accordingly, much significant than the national ones,
that’s why their preservation is the matter of national security. While
considering the issue from this standpoint, it is worth taking
into consideration that spiritual security of Armenia is not only
conditioned by mere "Armenian" motives. The considerable part of
our spiritual values has a character common to all mankind and,
in that way, makes a part of the world civilization system. In its
turn, it means that spiritual values of Armeniancy are subjects of
global civilization. This circumstance is extremely important in the
plane of world outlook, but, at the same time, is not a guarantor of
security of our system of values.

The spiritual sphere today is politicized as ever. Making unsteady
and disorganizing a nation-competitor’s system of values has become
one of the main objectives of up-to-date information warfare waged in
the context of civilization conflicts. The tendencies of present day
developments have come to prove that overall and especially Christian
systems of values are subject to serious threats. Thus, one should in
particular come to the conclusion that the issue of overall spiritual
system protection of Armeniancy has it share of rights and obligations.

How serious the threats directed against humanity are has come to
be proved by the fact that some analysts already consider up-to-date
political developments from post-historical, so called eschatological
(apocalyptical) standpoint. Such a standpoint is of methodological
significance as in that way an attempt is made to unify material
and spiritual in the political sphere, or theoretically get rid of
such an assertion that politics and morality are incompatible. On
this occasion let’s mention that today as well, according to some
classics of the strategy, "a big strategy" is to enclose "morality,"
otherwise it will not be effective.

Ensuring of our spiritual security requires involvement of all the
potential of Church, State and Society. At that, it is known that
semantic correlation of these subjects (except for separate examples)
is still up to the mark.

In the past there were known cases when State and Church signed
agreements – a concordat which was called to regulate relations between
spiritual and secular authorities and ensure harmony. However, on
the present stage the agreement reached between them is not enough:
today it is difficult to imagine any kind of harmony without society
with its moods and frames of mind. At that, spiritual and secular
perceptions in today’s Armenian society (especially in the absence
of overall national ideology) are manifold and often contradicting,
which makes the agreement formation atmosphere even more complicated.

In addition to the above mentioned let’s mention that in the society
are introduced ideological regulations which don’t coincide with
formation of harmony between spiritual and secular components. In
particular one of these concepts is "civil society". Welcoming
manifestations of civil activity, self-organization and zeal
ascribed to such a society, we are also anxious that such a form
and content of a society organization supposes certain atomization
of a society, aggravation of contradictions among its various
segments. We suppose that some regulations of "civil" society also
include elements of totalitarian ideology as they try to assert in
peoples’ minds inevitable antagonism in society-authorities relations,
thus reminding Bolshevist class approaches. Certain issues are also
raised in connection with absolutization of the term "human rights,"
which also often make a ground for radical, formalized interpretations.

However, it is obvious that confrontation to these foreign challenges
and making use of opportunities flowing out of these challenges is
realizable only in case of sufficient internal spiritual resources
the deficiency of which is obvious today. One should only say that
the world combination "spiritual power" is almost not used in our
information plane. It is partially conditioned by passive position of
Armenian Church to the society’s actual problems. At the same time
Armenian Statehood plays the most important role in the spiritual
sphere and in this connection it is worth mentioning the theological
concept "katekhon" interpreted as containment of permissiveness which
is considered to be the holly responsibility of the State. Today it
is necessary to restore this role of secular authority: the state must
undertake the whole complex of secular functions of ensuring spiritual
security. It is to be mentioned that Armenian Church, Armenian State
and Armeniancy as a whole are endowed with such qualities which are
necessary to form and preserve the society’s spiritual core.

In particular, Armenian Church is one of those exclusive churches
for which it is alien both secularization (mortification) inherent
to western churches (especially the protestant ones) and orthodox,
extremely conservative approaches of eastern churches. In other words,
our centuries-old spiritual-church culture is more than concordant
with the challenges of up-to-date globalization. Displaying a striking
example of original Armenian civilization our Church must play the
main role in the future multi-civilization world order, and its
mission is not only limited by Armenia and Armeniancy. In that way
Armenian Church is for centuries engaged in the issues of organizing
Armeniancy, according to the present day terminology, is competitive
and, accordingly, is obliged to undertake the role of our society’s
spiritual leader.

Mission of spiritual and secular authorities is to serve the
society. In its turn the society’s spiritual and intellectual substance
is devaluated if it doesn’t follow its national-spiritual essence and
doesn’t serve its nation. Armenian Church and Armenian State are to
work out and carry out projects which will make spiritual atmosphere
in the society and ensure ideological harmony.

Other issues of author ON THE COMPLEX OF INFERIORITY AND "TECHNOLOGICAL
SYSTEM" [04.10.2007] Information implication of the war [09.10.2006]
Russia: Problems in The West and the prospective in The East
[06.05.2006]