AINTAPTSI AND CONGRESS MEMBERS
Hakob Badalyan

Lragir.am
19/11/09

No doubt, bringing the example of Yeghiazar Aintaptsi while turning to
Serge Sargsyan, Levon Ter-Petrosyan put his partners from the Congress
in a very uncomfortable situation especially those who often meet
with journalists. They faced the most difficult problem to explain
the significance of this example to the public. While, the feeling is
created that the Congress leaders themselves did not fully understand
what Levon Ter-Petrosyan meant by that example. Perhaps, this is the
reason why each of them explains this example on their own creating
the impression that they try to explain it first for themselves.

"In the XVII century, there was an ambitious clergyman in Turkey by
the name Yeghiazar Aintaptsi who managed to become the Catholicos
of the Armenians living in Turkey through bribes and breaches posing
to danger the unity of the Armenian Church and Armenian people. So,
the Echmiadzin clergymen held a session and told him, "Brother,
if you want to become a Catholicos, come and become the Catholicos
of All Armenians but do not pose the nation to danger". Yeghiazar
agreed and became the Catholicos of All Armenians and reigned for 10
years. And the danger posed to the Armenian church was prevented. I do
not remember another such a wider and wiser decision in the Armenian
history than the one the Echmiadzin clergymen took. Which is the
reason why Serge Sargsyan thinks the Armenian nation is not able to
express wisdom for national purposes?"

Levon Ter-Petrosyan seems to have expressed the example on
Aintaptsi quite clearly. What Levon Ter-Petrosyan wants to say seems
understandable: the problem is why he says it. While the Congress
leaders try to show only what he says. This means that they did not
understand what Ter-Petrosyan said, let alone understanding why he
said so. The situation is really hard. Ter-Petrosyan in essence said
a new thing, but his team is trying to comment on the new thing in
the old logic saying that the leader has always thought so.

>>From this point, the government treated this scandalous part of Levon
Ter-Petrosyan’s speech wisely and does not seem to say anything in
this connection. Maybe the government did not understand the meaning
either. But this seems to be a more reasonable behavior than the
attempts to explain something without having understood. The government
at least understands that Aintaptsi is not what Ter-Petrosyan has
always said. Consequently, old-fashioned answers were not to be given
to these new and not yet understood words. Razmik Zohrabyan tried to
commit the same mistake, but the government realized and prevented
the Zohrabyan syndrome in time and stopped the continuation of the
"dusted" thesis on Levon Ter-Petrosyan’s leaving politics. The
government decided not to voice any version until it has a complete
idea of Aintaptsi’s life and activities.

In this comparison, the nerves of the Congress which has always been
famous for its patience, give way and its leaders seem to compete
who of them will explain better the real aim and sense of Levon
Ter-Petrosyan’s speech. No one knows why, they think they understood
it better than the society and they had understood the meaning of
the example before the latter was voiced, before Levon Ter-Petrosyan
wrote his speech.