Ambassador Mikayel Minasyan made a significant and arguably unparalleled contribution during his tenure as ambassador throughout Armenia's thirty years of independence. Video

"When Armenia had a state, there were also strong external forces, allies, systems, and proponents of truth and justice standing by that state. Finally, there was respect for the Armenian state, faith, history, pain and suffering, and in some places – a pronounced sympathy, there was visible and invisible support," wrote former Armenian MP Mihran Hakobyan, referring to the holding of an international conference at the Pontifical Gregorian University of the Holy See in the Vatican entitled "Christianity in Azerbaijan: History and Modernity."

"When Armenians had a state, they liberated and defended the Motherland, and the world treated this fact, these unspeakable efforts, with respect. When there was a state, the Vatican for the first time in history recognized the Armenian Apostolic Church as an equal sister church, a liturgy dedicated to the memory of the victims of the Armenian Genocide was served in St. Peter's Basilica in the Vatican, Pope Francis proclaimed St. Gregory of Narek (Grigor Narekatsi) a Doctor of the Universal Church, and a monument to St. Gregory of Narek was erected in the Vatican Gardens. The Vatican opened its archives (materials from the archive of the Congregation for the Eastern Churches – Ed.), publishing materials on the Armenian Genocide in 7 volumes.

All of this did not fall from the sky. All of this took place because the Armenians had a state and statesmen whose long and persistent diplomatic work led to a result that became a true source of pride both in Armenia and beyond its borders. But this, as they say, was in a past life," he noted.

Hakobyan recalled that in 2018, Armenians, shouting "dukhov" (with the stress on the last syllable, literally meaning "with courage," "fearlessly," the expression became one of the slogans of the change of power in Armenia in 2018 - Ed.) and "everything will be fine," rejected the state and brought ignorant people from the street to power.

"Let's not dwell on the tragic outcomes of 7 years of statelessness, everything is clear anyway. Let's just state that Nikol, clinging to the prime minister's seat of this non-state, and his foreign minister, along with the scum called 'ambassadors' who have forgotten their own honor, have brought the situation to the point where the state of Azerbaijan, together with one of the spiritual universities of the Vatican, is organizing an 'international conference of specialists on Caucasian Albania' in the Vatican itself, where it should be 'scientifically presented' that what has been created in Artsakh over millennia is not the heritage of Armenians, but supposedly of 'Caucasian Albanians.' They will discuss that Gandzasar, Amaras, and Dadivank are allegedly not Armenian monuments," Mihran Hakobyan noted.

"In essence, the Azerbaijani state, trying to appropriate Armenian heritage, is solving its problem. And before blaming the Vatican, let's remember who was the first in history to recognize Karabakh as part of Azerbaijan, thereby publicly declaring that the Armenian state renounces not only its own Motherland, but also its history, its heritage, and its truth. Because if 'Karabakh is Azerbaijan,' then Gandzasar can also be 'Albanian.'

Therefore, the Vatican, like any other international actor, has the right to treat Nikol, who has renounced his dignity, with indifference, and to build relations with a state, which it is successfully doing.

Armenians have no right to reconcile themselves to the absence of a state, humiliation, betrayal of the Motherland, with someone occupying the prime minister's seat, and at the same time demand respect and/or compassion from others. It is another matter that the Vatican is building relations with a state that destroyed the field of Christian khachkars (referring to Azerbaijan's destruction of the unique khachkars of the Jugha cemetery - Ed.), but that is a topic for another conversation.

When Voltaire was told, "Life is hard," he always replied, "Compared to what?" This shameful Azerbaijani-Vatican "case" is another episode comparing a state and a non-state, statesmen and street scum.

And if Armenians expect respect, compassion, and support from the world, they must first of all respect themselves, find the strength within themselves, and throw the non-state and its embodiment – the Nikol regime – into the dustbin of history," wrote Mihran Hakobyan.

He also published a video in which the Armenian Ambassador to the Holy See, Mikayel Minasyan, who was leaving his post in 2018, presents the work carried out by Armenian diplomacy in the Vatican.

"Who we were – and who we have become, where we were – and to what we have sunk," Hakobyan concluded.