- Who are we?- asked a young girl with loudspeaker.

- Armenian Apostolic, - answered the clustered youth.

- Yes to Armenian Apostolic Church.

- Yes,- repeated the group.

This introspective dialogue was taking place on the 14^th of October at 15.00, near Saryan's monument. A group of young people gathered with T-shirts and posters with "I am an Apostolic". They spread leaflets, where the names of several organizations were mentioned as spiritual traps. They also asked to stay away from disruptive sects.

The initiative belonged to youth union of Saint Trinity Church in the south-western part of Yerevan.

They gathered "to protest against the expansion of sects' activities". From the calls it was easy to understand that they see problem in national security and decided to call for the governmental officials not to be ignorant.

"Today we-Armenian Christians- gathered here to defend our children's rights to life and freedom. Today the protests of everyone have united, and we want it to be heard by you- the officials, responsible for the Republic of Armenia, in order you finally noticed the danger",- one of the members of the initiative cried out.

According to the participants the church hasn't weakened, simply people are cheated since it is easy to cheat them, involve them into their groups, also some sects pretend to be adjacent church of Armenian Apostolic Church- this way cheating on people.

"Today none of us is protected from disruptive activities of sects, since even the lives of people are threatened. Today's situation and the indifference of people is quite saddening",-says the participant of the initiative Karine Shahinyan.

The fact, that everyone according to RA Constitution has the right to freedom of religion and conscious (RA Constitution, article 26), and that this is the right that involves the right to change the faith, as well as practicing it alone or with others through preaching, church masses or other rituals expressing the freedom, the participants seemed to know about this, however they insisted that "sects proselytize" and they should be punished by law.

"All kinds of sects are proselytizing. There is a freedom of religion and conscious, however there is no law for proselytizing. The word proselytizing itself says what it means: involving people through cheating. They are allowed as organizations for freedom of religion and conscious, but there is no law there about proselytizing. I am for proselytizing to become punishable by law",-says Karine Shahinyan.

The participants of the movement went to National Assembly and to the Residence of the RA President to hand in the 34 thousand signatures asking for attention and making proselytizing a crime.

P.S. RA Ministry of Justice has made a new draft law on "Freedom of Religion and Conscious", where proselytizing is formulated, and in the RA Criminal Code change will occur which will make proselytizing a crime. The expert's opinion on this issue will be available during the coming days on www.hra.am.

Aghavni Yeghiazaryan

Source: www.hra.am