JAMnews (https://jam-news.net / ), a pro-Armenian and pro-Javakhk separatist publication which positions itself as a 'Georgian web resource', has produced three studies on the role of religious institutions in the three countries of the South Caucasus. It is immediately evident from the studies whose interests this resource defends.

 Thus, the publication of JAMnews on Georgia "Can a believer swim in the sea?" or how the church has become the most influential and wealthy institution in Georgia" is nothing but a set of all kinds of attacks on Orthodoxy, as well as malicious and dirty slander against the Georgian Orthodox Church (GOC) and its Catholicos-Patriarch Ilia II.

The Church pursues influence over all spheres of political and social life, from school curricula to questions of family organization.  – this clearly negative sentence towards the GOC is the starting point of the piece. And further the Georgian Orthodox Church is described in an exclusively hostile attitude to it, and the main emphasis is placed on the fact that it is supposedly "rich". That is, the material is 100% in the style of atheistic propaganda material of the Communist regime in the USSR, when such materials were used to justify the need to "confiscate church treasures" and "dekulakization" of the church.

It is also well known in whose favour those who order such materials want to "unseat" the GOC. JAMnews does not mention this directly, for obvious reasons, but we can guess. The Armenian Apostolic Church (AAC) and the Armenian Catholics brought forward their official claims on the total of 465 Georgian churches on the territory of Georgia. And Armenian nationalists and "Javakheti" separatists have already tried to seize by force the Georgian church of Kumurdo in Samtskhe-Javakheti.

Obviously those who with the tip of Armenian nationalists sling mud at the GOC through resources such as JAMnews need the support of the Georgian Orthodox Church by the Georgian people to go down. Not only to deprive the Georgian people of spiritual guidance, but also to start mass seizures of Georgian shrines.

 On the other hand, the JAMnews study on Armenia does not contain the same negativity towards the AAC as the Georgian "study" on the GOC is simply full of, although it does mention the difficult relations of the current Armenian authorities with the AAC. The material is titled in a very positive and "highly spiritual" manner: "Not a religion, but a way of life - how the Armenian Apostolic Church became exceptional".

The article starts immediately with high-sounding phrases and substitution of notions:

The first thing every Armenian will tell you about their homeland is that Armenia was the first to adopt Christianity as a state religion in 301AD.

So, obviously, Christianity has had a special role in shaping the national identity of the Armenians.

Armenia is one of the few secular countries in the world that has retained its mono-ethnic and mono-confessional structure. More than 90% of the population of Armenia consider themselves Christians, most of them followers of the Armenian Apostolic Church.

The main confusion here is that Armenia has its "mono-ethnic mono-confessional structure" but has not "preserved" it at all. You cannot "preserve" something that did not exist. And before 1918, there was no such state as Armenia. At the time of the declaration of the First Republic of Armenia in 1918, its territory in the historical lands of western Azerbaijan was not mono-confessional at all. Mono-confessionalism and mono-ethnicity were artificially created by Armenian nationalists through the genocide and ethnic cleansing of the indigenous population of this territory - Muslim Azerbaijanis.

 JAMnews also published an article about the religious situation in Azerbaijan under the ambiguous title "Islam has no significant influence in Azerbaijani society. What does it mean?". And in the first part of this material - resolutely sided with the Iranian agents in Azerbaijan:

Nardaran events – the largest religious clash

A bloody clash took place on November 26, 2015 in the Baku suburb of Nardaran in which seven people were killed, including two policemen.

It all started when the government launched a special operation to detain leaders of Islamic movements in Nardaran over an “armed group” that allegedly was in the village and plotting to overthrow the constitutional order by force, former Interior Minister Ramil Usubov said.

After that, the people of Nardaran set up barricades and closed the entrances and exits to the village. Three days later, the council of elders of Nardaran decided to stop the protest. A further 19 people were later arrested.

Seven years have passed since the incident, but still today when entering or leaving Nardaran, one must go through a police checkpoint. At the entrance to the village, one must give an exact reason for visiting and wait until this is verified.

JAMnew does not specify that it is not the innocuous "leaders of Islamic movements" who are in Nardaran, but an agent of the intelligence services of the Islamic Republic of Iran. The same which even today supports Armenian "Artsakh" separatists and has been secretly supporting Armenia's occupation of Azerbaijani lands of Garabagh for almost 3 decades. But at the same time Armenian occupants ousted more than 1 million Muslims from their native lands, desecrated mosques and cemeteries, and neither Tehran nor its agents represented by so-called "Islamic movements leaders" in Nardaran were confused.

After the act of terrorism committed against the Azerbaijani embassy in Tehran on January 27, 2023 it became clear that the agents of the Islamic Republic of Iran in Azerbaijan represent a danger to the state. And the Azerbaijani Interior Ministry carried out a special operation to neutralise pro-Iranian agents, carrying out a series of detentions, with agents of the neighbouring state acting under religious cover. We can therefore expect a new round of hysteria in the pro-Armenian media concerning alleged "violations of religious freedom" in Azerbaijan.

George Kvinitadze