Statues of Jesus are not a thing in the country that prides itself on being the first to adopt Christianity as its national religion. But Armenia’s most glitzy business mogul, whose personal style once served as a US ambassador of therocked like the one who “would make Donald Trump look like an ascetic”, is about to change that.
When Gagik Tsarukyan announced in 2022 that he was going build the tallest statue of Jesus in the worldthe Armenian Church which regards him as a megadonor expressed polite dissent: the 1,700-year-old Armenian church tradition rejects three-dimensional figures of Christ as idols.
A resourceful man, Tsarukyan quickly renamed his pious company project into a tourism development plan. Before anyone knew it, he held an inauguration ceremony on July 9, attended by Armenian Economy Minister Vahan Kerobyan and a UN official, atop historic Hatis.
And it was revolutionary. Mount Hatis, which Tsarukyan managed to acquire room by room, is a national monument protected by the state. In addition to its fauna and flora and its status as Recognized by CNN best hiking destination in the world located on the Silk Road, Mount Hatis has about 20 historical sites. The ceremony partially destroyed a pre-Christian fortress that once adorned the mountaintop, while others may have been damaged during road construction and infrastructure development for the new project.
Tsarukyan’s giant Jesus statue not only ignores Orthodox Christianity, but also embraces Eurocentric constructions: Mount Hatis is a rare evocative of Armenia’s pagan past. The ancient toponym is believed to derive from the resurrection deity Attis, a god of Asia Minor, a variant of whom is known in Armenian mythology as King Ara the Handsome and referenced as Er the son of Armenias in Plato Republic. In the Armenian tale, Ara is accidentally killed when the Assyrian queen Semiramis (Shamiram) invades Armenia in a desperate attempt to win her love by force. Incidentally, Mount Hatis has also been called Mount Shamiram, and the mountaintop archaeological site that Tsarukyan recently damaged is still known locally as Shamiram Fortress.
On paper, Mount Hatis is protected by Armenian laws. But the project has the support of the once-popular Armenian Prime Minister, Nikol Pashinyan, under whose leadership the Armenians suffered a devastating defeat in the 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh war, and who is now courting his long-time enemy, Tsarukyan, to prevent his return to politics.
More than the weakness of post-war Armenia and the outsized influence of an oligarch, it is the restrained opposition of one of the world’s oldest institutions – the Armenian Church – that is most surprising. . Opposing idols isn’t just a matter of preference. The founding of the Armenian Church in 301 ushered in the erasure of any perceived idol, eliminating many pagan objects. The practice has continued over the centuries. In 1874, during the renovation of the Mets Astvatsatsin monastery in Agulis (later razed during post-Soviet Azerbaijan complete erasure of the region’s Armenian past), ancient pagan statues have been unearthed quickly destroyed as idols by fanatical construction workers. Today, repeated acts of vandalism against a small statue of Jesus (Armenia’s only three-dimensional Jesus figurine), placed in the town of Metsamor in 2005, suggest fanatical opposition to the icons remains strong.
However, supporters of Tsarukyan argue that the Armenian Church itself has recently adopted holy statues. Over the past two decades, statues of several saints or historical leaders of the Armenian Church have been erected in churches across the country; although to be fair, they are not objects of worship. The tycoon is not unknowingly challenging the church: in fact, he plans to build 1,700 steps leading to the statue of Jesus – to honor the age of the Armenian Church.
Many ordinary Armenians will likely adopt the giant statue of Jesus as an object of worship. A small-scale precedent exists in the famous Yot Verk Church in Armenia’s second-largest city, Gyumri, which houses a large Roman Catholic crucifix which, along with the local Catholic parish, was taken refuge during Stalin’s repressions. The crucifixion statue has since become a major sacred object for many Gyumri residents, often generating hours of lines on special occasions. In fact, the icon is probably even more popular than the famous “Seven Wounds of Christ” image itself (the Armenian Church accepts images and relief carvings) kept in the church of the same name.
Given the Armenian Church’s tradition of embracing certain popular beliefs, one day the Church may, post facto, have to embrace the giant statue of Jesus. After all, the unique mark of Armenian Christianity has harmonized the fundamental tenets of Christianity with popular pagan practices, such as the Vardavar Water Festival, the August Grape Blessing, and the Trndez Winter Fire Jumping Festival. . But why tolerate the challenge by an oligarch of the traditions of the Armenian Church? Money and power have historically been factors in Christianity, says Artyom Tonoyan, a visiting professor at Hamline University who specializes in the sociology of religion. “Power and money may not shape official doctrine and theology, insofar as they did anyway, but they do inspire certain popular practices that are doctrinally suspect and heterodox at their core,” a- he declared. Hyperallergic.
Even if the Armenian Church were to embrace the giant statue of Jesus, environmentalists, conservationists and travel agencies would be angry. Monument Watch, an initiative launched in 2020 to monitor the fate of Armenian sites under Azerbaijan’s new control, was among the first to speak out, announcing that “it is impossible to watch without shuddering the destruction of Mount Hatis, which is carried out with the acceptance and permission of the Armenian authorities”, also calling it a “flagrant violation of Armenian legislation on the protection of cultural heritage”.
After a public backlash, the relevant Armenian government bodies announced that they had not approved the project on Mount Hatis. In separate statements, the nature and culture ministries condemned the destruction of Hatis, saying they disagreed with the location without opposing the prime minister’s green light for the idea in general. But there is not much local outrage, perhaps because the project would create jobs for local villagers, even if they lose pastures for livestock.
The project was officially stopped, but Tsarukyan’s contract sculptors would be building the statue at the art studio. The oligarch forges ahead, determined to surpass Rio de Janeiro’s famed Christ the Redeemer. Currently the tallest statue of Jesus in the world is in western Poland, measuring 172 feet combined, including the pedestal. The plan for the Mount Hatis monument calls for a 253-foot-tall statue.
But Tsarukyan risks having a bad surprise: his team seems to have failed to discover that a statue of the same height would be under construction in Mexico.
Even if it fails to become the tallest statue of Jesus in the world, there is still huge profit potential attached to it. Despite being billed as a philanthropic effort, it can generate significant revenue and not just from the resort’s planned restaurants and exhibits. A digital model of the project show several dozen planned luxury structures resembling houses or lodge rentals, an almost guaranteed high return in Armenia’s booming real estate.
While it’s hard to pinpoint the true motives behind the statue, it’s hardly for profit. As with most grandiose projects, it is probably a monument to Tsarukyan’s favorite person: himself, whom he speaks of in the third person. The availability of additional plots behind the statue may suggest a desire for future personal use, perhaps a necropolis for the magnate and his family. Did I mention the giant statue of Jesus will glow at night?
