Hrant Bagratyan isn’t afraid of declaration
It is absolutely nonsensical to give land to churches. Tigran Sargsyan is simply doing that in order to make his name go down in history," this is how former prime minister Hrant Bagratyan viewed the government's proposal to make amendments in several laws discussed at the National Assembly.
According to those proposals, there have to be amendments in the RA laws "On Property Tax", "On Land Tax" and "On Making Additions to the RA Land Code", which free the Armenian Holy Apostolic Church, that is, the Mother See of Holy Etchmiadzin, as well as churches, spiritual, cultural, educational buildings from land and property taxes.
"The more land Armenian churches get, the more the country will be destroyed," Hrant Bagratyan says.
"Even that which is required to take care of the church's needs should be taxed, just like all types of taxes. Some theses of protesting should be accepted, just like they are accepted in certain types of countries," the former prime minister claims.
He is aware that NA Chairman Hovik Abrahamyan has also expressed concern over this draft law. "I have already said that if we compare Hovik Abrahamyan with others, he might be better or worse than the others. He understands things better than the prime minister does," Hrant Bagratyan said.
Journalists asked whether he wasn't afraid that the Apostolic Church headed by the Catholicos could declare him denied by the church. "Nobody will declare that," Hrant Bagratyan said.
