Epress.am News from Armenia
You don’t know why, but increasingly our people believe in superstition. It’s assumed that it should’ve been the opposite, since we all see what impact quality of life has in people’s lives,” said Father Shmavon Ghevondyan of St. Hovhannes Armenian Apostolic Church and the Ararat Patriarchal Diocese.
Note that the priest was slightly late to the press conference in Yerevan today, citing difficulty in finding a parking space. Father Ghevondyan added, he plans to sell his car and buy a motorcycle instead.
Back on the topic of superstition, the priest noted that those who seek the services of fortune tellers and psychics say that such services give them the opportunity to “think clearly and make right decisions.”
“That isn’t so. Fortunes are not acceptable by God because prediction is deception in itself. We can’t speak of something that has not yet happened,” he said, adding only God knows what can happen in people’s lives in the future.
“There have been prophecies which have had to do with Jesus Christ’s resurrection, but these weren’t predictions, but true prophecies which took place,” he said, stressing that predictions do not come from God, “and if they don’t come from God, then naturally, [they come from] his opponent, Satan.”
Psychologist Ruben Poghosyan, in turn, observed that superstition is a cultural phenomenon in history. “Our consciousness creates it because it is always in need of protection.”
There have been psychics, said Poghosyan, but he sees danger in fortunes. “Man, it seems, plans [his future], and if the fortune reigns for the given person, he begins to live with expectations, what will happen, how will it happen.”