YEREVAN, MARCH 19, NOYAN TAPAN. The government made the decision to build a church in the place of Moscow cinema's open-air summer hall hastily, without consulting with professional structures. Mkrtich Minasian, the Chairman of the Union of Architects of Armenia said at a March 17 press conference that today the whole architectural community is against that project. It should be mentioned that by government's decision, the land plot of cinema's summer hall's building was alienated to the Mother See of Holy Echmiadzin by the right of gratuitous ownership for building a new church with the appearance of the Saint Poghos-Petros Church destroyed in that territory in the Soviet years. M. Minasian said that the cinema hall was illegally removed from the list of monuments protected by the state. In his words, the list of monuments protected by the state is determined by an expert commission, thus it is the expert commission that should make a decision to remove any monument from the list. However, according to him, the RA Ministry of Culture did not ensure that process. M. Minasian said that the Poghos-Petros Church had no architectural value while the summer hall is considered one of the best samples of modern Armenian architecture. "How much is it expedient to build a church in that place if another church is built in the vicinity," the Chairman of the Union of Architects said. And according to priest Ter Mkhitar Aloyan, today the Church wants back the territory that belonged to it formerly. "I wonder whether the Palace of Youth, which was destroyed, had no architectural value. If cinema's owner built a cabaret or a swimming-pool, would you protest in that case?" he said.

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