Levon Ter-Petrosyan responded
Why didn't Levon Ter-Petrosyan greet Raffi Hovhannisian during the March 17 rally at Freedom Square? The leader of the Armenian National Congress gave the following response to the question from "Haykakan Zhamanak" daily newspaper.
"I did not greet him because that would go against my principles as a Christian. Before being a religion and more than that, for me Christianity is a moral code. That code rejects showing off Christian virtues, including piety, mercy, meekness, obedience, benevolence, as well as fasting. When you show off a virtue, it is no longer a virtue. In regard to fasting in particular, one of the most reputable Fathers of the Armenian Church, Hovhan Mandakuni said the following in the 5th century: "Satan destroys those who fast and the fasting when a person places himself above the rest and wishes to see others trumpet his abstinence, be aware of it and admire his courage. This kind of fasting doesn't purify and justify the person, but destroys him". I could bring hundreds of examples from scripts of the Armenian Church and other churches. In any case, if Raffi Hovhannisian declared a hunger strike for concrete political demands rather than a public fasting, I would not only greet him, but would express my full support to him."
