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27.10.2008

STATE – CHURCH – SOCIETY: ISSUES OF SPIRITUAL SECURITY

   

Gagik Terteryan

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.


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