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In the Gilded Hall of the National Assembly of the Republic of Armenia the solemn opening ceremony of the 17^th Annual General Assembly of the Inter-Parliamentary Assembly on Orthodoxy was held, which attended RA NA President Hovik Abrahamyan, the Supreme Patriarch and Catholicos of All Armenians Garegin II, NKR NA President Ashot Ghulyan, NA deputies, ambassadors, representatives of international organizations. About 70 delegates from 16 countries will take part in the works of the Assembly.

Before the opening ceremony of the Assembly the participants laid flowers at the memorial perpetuating the memory of the October 27, 1999 crime victims.

The Chairman of the General Assembly of the Inter-parliamentary Assembly on Orthodoxy, the deputy of the State Duma of Russia Sergey Popov opened the 17^th Annual General Assembly Inter-Parliamentary Assembly on the Orthodoxy.

The representative of RA President in RA NA Garnik Isaghulyan conveyed the message of RA President Serzh Sargsyan to the participants.

It is my pleasure to welcome the organizers, participants and guests of the 17^th Annual General Assembly of the Inter-Parliamentary Assembly on Orthodoxy.

It is symbolic that the Assembly took a decision to hold its annual session here – one of the ancient centres of Christianity and Christian values. As a representative of the nation which was the first in the world to proclaim Christianity as a state religion, I attach great importance to this event both in the spiritual, cultural and socio-political sense.

At present we are living in a time when the world nations and states face political, economic, interethnic, environmental and other new challenges. Experience shows that it is possible to overcome them only through cooperation, mutual assistance and coordination of efforts.

Through its entire history the Armenian people were guided by an important behest – peace is the basic factor uniting people, leading to cooperation and prosperity, without which all human aspirations cannot be implemented.

This Assembly also symbolizes the ideas of Christian solidarity and consolidation of common cultural values. The consolidation of the Christians of the world and world religions around the lofty universal and human ideals is clearly outlined in the format of the dialogue promoting the modern ecumenism - cohesion of churches.

Since its inception the Inter-Parliamentary Assembly on Orthodoxy whose activity is based on the universal humanitarian values and principles has been serving the cause of the cooperation between peoples and efficient response to existing challenges. Any activity aimed at the cultural dialogue, unbiased human contacts and relations, overcoming extreme nationalism, religious and ethnic intolerance, defence of human rights deserves respect and support, and for the 17 years of its existence the Inter-Parliamentary Assembly on Orthodoxy has greatly promoted the implementation of these goals.

This attests also to the fact that within a comparatively short period of time the framework of the organization’s activity and efficiency was enlarged comprising members of parliaments from more and more countries. It is encouraging that the Inter-Parliamentary Assembly on Orthodoxy has gone beyond the boundaries of Europe and is represented as a world organization.

I am hopeful that the Yerevan meeting will give a new impetus to the activity of the Assembly. I wish further success and fruitful proceedings to the Inter-Parliamentary Assembly on Orthodoxy whose activity is aimed at the shaping of mutual understanding, solidarity and cooperation, establishment of tolerance and peaceful coexistence.

It is my pleasure to welcome the organizers, participants and guests of the 17^th Annual General Assembly of the Inter-Parliamentary Assembly on Orthodoxy.

At present we are living in a time when the world nations and states face political, economic, interethnic, environmental and other new challenges. Experience shows that it is possible to overcome them only through cooperation, mutual assistance and coordination of efforts.

RA NA President Hovik Abrahamyan gave a speech at the opening ceremony of the Assembly.

Your Holiness,

President of the Inter-Parliamentary Assembly on Orthodoxy,

Secretary General,

Participants in the Assembly,

Ambassadors,

Guests,

Ladies and gentlemen,

I am pleased to welcome you in the Republic of Armenia, cradle of Christianity. I am happy that the 17^th Annual General Assembly of the Inter-Parliamentary Assembly on Orthodoxy is currently held in Yerevan.

The Christian world has had its major contribution to the development of the world civilization and establishment of a universal value system. Armenia, which was the first country to proclaim Christianity as state religion, to date remains committed to the ideas of tolerance and solidarity, and stands ready for a major broad interreligious dialogue and joint work for the sake of peace and prosperity of peoples.

Here we all are united by the belief based on these principles together with its moral and ethical standards. The same principles are reflected in our culture and traditions. It is my strong belief that in particular these common spiritual and cultural values are able to bring closer states and peoples. Traditionally the church has and continues to play a significant role in this process.

I am proud to state that the Armenian Holy Apostolic Church has its own place not only in consolidating the cohesion of our nation and preservation of national identity, but for centuries has promoted the establishment of efficient cultural relations with neighbouring peoples and religions, understanding and preservation of their spiritual, cultural and historical values.

Since the very first day of its inception the Armenian church was a reliable foot-hold for the Armenian statehood, and an organizer of the national life during its absence, and it had an invaluable contribution to the consolidation of the unity of our people. The church has a significant role in the development and preservation of the culture, Armenian script and literature, arts and science, education and national self-consciousness. Inter alia, the first book translated into Armenian following the creation of the Armenian alphabet by the Great Mesrop Mashtots was the Bible.

Armenia prioritizes also the preservation of cultural values, in particular those values, which do enjoy world significance. The cultural diversity and the preservation and protection of monuments are especially important for those peoples, whose cultural and historical monuments are outside of their current state borders, throughout the world and, in particular, our region.

In the Islamic Republic of Iran the Christian monuments are under the auspices of the state, but the same cannot be said about Azerbaijan and Turkey, our other neighbours. It is a tragedy that actions aimed at the destruction of the Armenian cultural heritage are on-going, despite the constant alarms from Armenia and international organizations.

In particular in Azerbaijan everything is being done at the highest state level to eliminate the ancient testimonies of areas inhabited by Armenians for centuries. This is a cultural genocide, to say the least.

The destruction of the ancient cemetery of Julfa in Nakhichevan formerly populated by Armenians and currently with no Armenians at all attests to the ruins of the Armenian monuments, too.

The international community should strongly condemn such barbarous actions. They are aimed at the destruction not only of Armenian, but also pan-Christian spiritual values.

It is more painful, when the Armenian historical and cultural monuments are ruined in countries with similar religion, while we believe that it should have been the contrary, as is being done in many states, where these values are not only preserved, but new values are created, too.

The growing military expenditure of Azerbaijan and the bellicose statements by the Azeri authorities to solve the Nagorno Karabagh problem by force also need to be condemned. The latest Azeri provocation, which regrettably resulted in human losses attests that the bellicose statements can become a real threat to regional security.

Armenia seeks to solve the Nagorno Karabagh conflict solely through peaceful means and focuses on confidence-building in order to have on-going constructive negotiations. The settlement of the Nagorno Karabagh conflict should be based on the recognition of the Nagorno Karabagh people’s self-determination and the exercise thereof.

Dear colleagues,

Caucasus is a region full of ethnic cultural and religious diversity. Together with all these features it has a huge potential to transform this diversity into multilateral opportunities for cooperation. I believe this Assembly will have its constructive contribution to this process.

Once again I would like to welcome you all in Armenia and wish fruitful and interesting proceedings. I strongly hope that you will be pleased to see the attractions and ancient historical and cultural values of Armenia.

Thank you.

The Supreme Patriarch and Catholicos of All Armenians Garegin II welcomed the works of the Assembly.

Distinguished parliamentarians,

We are happy to welcome you on the ancient soil of Armenia, the first Christian country, which bowed before the Lord’s cross as far back as 301 A.D. This is not only a joy of hospitality , but also the joy to realize that a meeting between the brothers of the same confession and like-minded persons supporting many current issues. We believe that this meeting which is the continuation of those held in Athens, Sofia, Jerusalem and Patmos island will benefit on the way to seek answers to global crucial issues.

One of the major current issues for statesmen, in particular legislators, relates to the idea of a secular state. At present the notion of a church separate from the state is often perceived by the principle of excluding the two institutions from each other, leading to the alienation of state structures from religious institutions, and more painfully, that of state figures. Moreover, the above-mentioned trend in state bodies as well as officials brings to the shaping of indifference towards spiritual and religious matters, issues which emerge at every step and this or that way are in the background of problems which the state is trying to solve. We strongly believe that it is impossible to fully solve secular problems when the state and its servants are separated from the religious basis, which has shaped the spiritual world and image of the people, whose life is determined and whose aspirations are to be implemented by them. For these reasons we deem it especially valuable that the Assembly has united those politicians who are not indifferent to these vital issues in the traditional areas like political, economic, social and relevant fields, but also in the spiritual field. We appreciate the fact that the Assembly has brought together members of parliament combining politics and belief, legislative activity and alms seeking to introduce the spiritual understanding of the world and strengthen the traditional Christian values in the legislatures of their countries.

The activity of the assembly is indeed invaluable in uniting ancient Christian peoples. The contacts between the parliamentarians of different countries within the Assembly is already a precedent, perhaps even a safeguard for peace and fraternity between these countries, hence a tangible contribution to the vast spiritual space of the entire humankind. We also believe that such meetings and contacts should promote overcoming the tensions and disagreements sometimes evolving as a consequence of misperceptions and misunderstandings among our peoples. Here we mean the Armenian-Georgian church relations, in particular providing a proper legal status to the Armenian diocese in Georgia and return of Armenian churches to the diocese, as well as the on-and-off misunderstandings between the Greek and Armenian patriarchates in Jerusalem, which we are convinced, should also become possible to overcome in the fraternal spirit of dialogue and mutual understanding.

One of the problems the Armenian Apostolic Church is concerned with is the engagement of the traditional Christian values with the public at large, namely increasing the role of the spiritual factor throughout the world, strengthening the Christian perceptions in culture and everyday life, overcoming religious fanaticism, facing the equalizing challenges of globalization. We are equally concerned with the defence of religious and national minorities, rights of nations to self-determination, which are expressed in different ways in the official documents of the Assembly on Serbia, Cyprus and other issues. The following reality relates to the afore-mentioned stand, when in 1996, when no international organization could dare see Karabagh as an independent unit the Assembly was the first to include in the Athens Assembly participants from the Nagorno Karabagh delegation.

It is impossible to underestimate the Assembly decision to go out of the boundaries of Europe and include delegates from Asia, Australia and Africa, who have been attending the assembly since 2001. This decision is dictated by the consciousness that the Assembly priorities are universal and to solve them the Christian churches of these regions, like the Assyrian Ethiopian, Copt and Malankara churches, united with the Armenian Apostolic Church or the Ancient or Eastern Orthodoxy family.

The similarity of our goals attests to the following: last March Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia and I signed a Joint Declaration, underscoring that importance of the Christian belief and dissemination of values based thereon, development of crucial inter-Christian and inter-religious contacts, need for cohesion of efforts to face the intervention of false religious movements in traditionally Christian countries, prevent the damaging and destructive actions by various sects, importance of the Christian belief and dissemination of values based thereon, development of crucial inter-Christian and inter-religious contacts, need for cohesion of efforts to face the intervention of false religious movements in traditionally Christian countries, prevent the damaging and destructive actions by various sects.

importance of the Christian belief and dissemination of values based thereon, development of crucial inter-Christian and inter-religious contacts, need for cohesion of efforts to face the intervention of false religious movements in traditionally Christian countries, prevent the damaging and destructive actions by various sects.

Once again expressing our pleasure with today’s meeting we bring our holy blessings to the members of the Assembly, wishing you to be supported by the Lord to have new achievements and progress. We pray and ask the Lord to prompt ways and guide the activity through a pleasant and hence right track.

In his welcoming speech NKR NA President Ashot Ghulyan thanked the organizers of the Assembly and RA NA leadership for the given opportunity. In Mr. Ghulyan’s word our country has professed Christianity for more than 1700 years, which has been our ancestors’ choice, and the truthfulness of which has proved the history. “Our region is historically a stage of clash of hard dialogue and civilizations, but we permanently succeeded to preserve the national uniqueness, faith, language, the institutes of self-organization,” Mr. Ghulyan noted in his speech.

He expressed concern in connection with the conservation of the historical-cultural heritage of the Armenian people, being on the territory of the former Azerbaijan. The Armenian Christian monuments are destroyed in Azerbaijan. The striving of Azerbaijan for distorting the history at state level, according to Ashot Ghulyan, is unacceptable. Such policy is of continuous nature and gets new revelations. In his word, the people of Nagorno Karabakh preserve the cultural values of other peoples with warmth. He noted that recently in the capital of NKR, Stepanakert, a celebration dedicated to the establishment of the Russian Orthodox Church was held, and in Shushi a mosque is being restored. He also touched upon the tragic incident, which occurred 10 days ago in the contact line of Azerbaijan and Karabakh, which caused casualties and once again made obvious our neighbours’ goals: to use the negotiation as a veil for the settlement of the problem through military. “My country has reached a level of state organization, which if is not high, in any case is not low from the post-Soviet region states,” Mr. Ghulyan noted.

The Secretary General of the General Assembly of the Inter-Parliamentary Assembly on the Orthodoxy, the deputy of the Greek Parliament Anastasios Nerantzis welcomed the participants of the Assembly.

The Head of the Secretariat of Moscow Patriarchate Archbishop Mark Yegorevsky read the message of the Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia His Holiness Kiril I. The Speaker of the State Duma of Russia Boris Gryzlov, the Speaker of the Greek Parliament Phillip Petsalnikos, Speaker of the Supreme Rada of Ukraine Vladimir Litvin, Universal Patriarch His Holiness Varfolomey also sent messages. The deputy of the Georgian Parliament Giorgi Goguadze gave speech in the name of PABSEC.