YEREVAN. – Armenian and Georgian experts share the views regarding the incident at Surb Etchmiadzin church in Tbilisi. In their view, it was initially a domestic conflict that turned into an ethnic one.

One of the reasons, according to Armenian political analyst Johnny Melikyan, became misinterpretation of what happened, including that by representatives of the Georgian Diocese of the Armenian Apostolic Church.

Moreover, as noted by the expert at the Center of Strategic Studies George Gvimradze, xenophobic sentiments in reality exist in the Georgian society to some extent, and some political groups or former authorities, that are now the opposition are using it.

Political scientist Arsen Kharatyan believes aggravation of xenophobia was contributed by another factor: there is only one Armenian center in Tbilisi.

“For these reasons Surb Etchmiadzin became the main center for all cultural and religious activities of the Armenians. As a result, there is a large crowd of people and cars near the church that ia annoying the people living nearby,” the expert added.

All participants of the space bridge are convinced that the incident will not affect interstate and inter-church relations between Armenians and Georgians. Nevertheless, you must take a number of preventive measures to avoid recurrence of such incidents in the future, said deputy director of the Caucasus Institute Sergey Minasyan. He believes it is necessary to strengthen the dialogue between states and between different ministries and organizations.

According to the statement by the Diocese of Georgia of the Armenian Apostolic Church, on the evening of July 19, a group of people carried out a planned attack against the clergy of the Holy Etchmiadzin Church.