Former Defense Minister Vigen Sargsyan has responded on Facebook to a rare and emotional curse pronounced by Father Asoghik Karapetyan, calling it “unbelievable” but “all the more concentrated and targeted.”

“Those who know Father Asoghik know that it is hard to find a more compassionate and humane individual,” wrote Sargsyan. “He is not one to speak easily. Hearing a curse from him is almost unthinkable, which makes it all the more powerful and focused.”

He continued: “This curse will not pass over the masterminds and spiritual patrons of this anti-Armenian crime, nor the ‘misguided’ executors, nor even the so-called ‘mere order followers’ and their clans.”

Sargsyan urged people to wake up and act with integrity: “Wake up! Each of you must make your decision with conscience, reason, and faith. May God protect us all.”

Father Asoghik Karapetyan had previously expressed his profound outrage and grief over “the hostile attacks executed against the Mother See of Holy Etchmiadzin, the entire clergy, and the Catholicos of All Armenians, by today’s authorities and their agents—who, in a satanic pact with dark forces, dare to defile the holy grounds.”

He cursed “all those who, having sold their souls to the devil, dared or will dare to enter the Mother See of Holy Etchmiadzin to desecrate the Armenian Catholicosate, raise arms against the clergy and the Anointed of God, and trample the sacred values of the Armenian nation.”