THE PASTOR'S VERDICT

Yerevan has another grud-ge against Russia. And this time, the clearly malevolent attention of Yerevan politicians is focused no more no less on the Primate of the Russian Orthodox Church and Patriarch of All Russia Kirill. Russia marked Orthodox Christmas on 7 January. On the eve of the holiday, Patriarch Kirill gave his traditional Christmas interview to Russia TV.

To be honest, who behaved well and organically in front of the camera - the head of the Russia Today holding and "Vesti Nedeli" host Dmitriy Kiselev or the ROC chief - remains to be seen. Patriarch Kirill, who was not a patriarch but a young priest at the time, first appeared on the screen during a USSR-USA teleconference, which was hosted by Vladimir Pozner and Phil Donahue. Then there were Sunday sermons broadcast on the same Russia TV channel. In short, the Primate of the Russian Orthodox Church knows very well how to communicate with the audience "behind the screen". And this time, he spoke about what concerned and still concerns many: Orthodox Christians, Muslims, Jews, Buddhists, atheists and believers, young and old...

Among other things, the Primate of the Russian Orthodox Church touched on the events in Syria. He categorically rejected the religious nature of the war in this country. Then he firmly stated: "It has become a commonplace to say that it is not a religious war, and I subscribe to this attitude to this conflict." And then there was an excursion into history. Patriarch Kirill admitted: yes, at times relations between Christians and Muslims were not rosy. But then he recalled: "But if we leave out the actual military operations, which are always accompanied by losses on both sides, there was never anything like what is now happening in the Islamic world. Take, for example, the Turkish, Ottoman Empire, where there were Christian minorities. They were not wiped out. There was a certain order of relations between religious communities. The keys to the Holy Sepulchre are still in the hands of a Muslim Arab. All this comes from those Turkish times when a Muslim was responsible for the safety and storage of Christian relics."

It is not difficult to notice that the statement of the Patriarch strongly contradicts the favourite theories, or rather, myths of Yerevan politicians, according to which the Ottoman Empire was engaged exclusively in carrying out "genocide against Armenians" and other Christians. Yerevan turned out to be unprepared for the fact that the ROC head would talk about the Sublime Porte in a positive way.

The official Armenian authorities tried not to notice this statement. But the opposition press did not hide its indignation. The Yerevan newspaper "Lragir" is outraged: "Is the Patriarch unaware of the events that took place 100 years ago? Maybe he is not, although it does not do the Russian pastor, who claims to be the leader and protector of all Christians, any credit. Is Kirill unaware of the fact that the Ottoman Empire carried out 'genocide of Armenians', Pontic Greeks and Assyrians?"

The point, however, is not only, or rather, not so much about the statement of the ROC Primate. The current tensions between Moscow and Ankara were met with undisguised enthusiasm in Yerevan. At first everything went in full accordance with Yerevan's plans. The leaders of Russia made and are still making tough statements against Turkey. Travel companies were ordered not to send organized groups to that country. Finally, State Duma members from the Just Russia faction submitted a bill on responsibility for the failure to recognize the "Armenian genocide" in 1915 to the lower house of parliament, while Just Russia leader Sergey Mironov also called for tougher responses against the Turkish side. And recently, the situation reached its apotheosis. A Hamlet Grigoryan from Rostov-on-Don, and hardly exclusively on his own initiative, made a petition demanding the denunciation of the Treaty of Moscow signed on 16 March 1921. This agreement, together with the previously signed Treaty of Kars, determined the configuration of the borders of Soviet Russia and Turkey and ruined the dream of a "Western Armenia" on Turkish soil. And now, amid growing tensions between Moscow and Ankara, Yerevan acti-vists have come to the conclusion that it is the most convenient time to revive their claim to six Eastern Anatolian vilayets!

"Due to the severity of political content in the Soviet era and in subsequent years, the Russian-Turkish treaty of 1921, better known as the Treaty of Moscow, remained one of the international documents least studied by historians and political scientists. The value of the treaty from the perspective of Soviet and later Armenian and Russian, as well as Armenian-Russian joint foreign policy interests is comparable to the Treaty of Brest or the problem of the Kuril Islands and emotionally to the question of ownership of Alaska and the Crimean peninsula," the author of the petition says.

The question is why Armenia is not denouncing the Treaty of Mos-cow itself. And it is clear why: Yerevan is well aware that a war with Turkey is a dangerous business, especially if you resume hostilities with Azerbaijan and unleash a conflict with Georgia. It is much more "comfortable" to force Russia to fight for "the Armenian dream".

Against this background, the statement of Patriarch Kirill not just contradicts the Yerevan myth of "genocide". More importantly, it puts an end to the hopes of Yerevan politicians to push Russia into a full-scale war. As it turned out, Moscow has, of course, its claims against Turkey (how reasonable they are and who is right and who is to blame is a topic of another conversation), but does not intend to get involved in a war with the entire NATO bloc for the "Armenian dream".

And the most "advanced" Yerevan experts recall: it is possible that the bill on criminalizing the denial of the "Armenian genocide", proposed by Just Russia, too, has every chance to remain just a "bill". Analysts say that it was proposed not by ruling United Russia, but by Fair Russia, which had no majority in the State Duma. And most importantly, it turned out that Russia does not intend to completely burn bridges in relations with Turkey, and even more so to do it at the behest of Yerevan.