The role of the Armenian Apostolic Church in the life of the community was problematic for the 19th century’s enlightenment and liberal thinking. At the beginning of the 20th century, the most influential force in Armenia, the Armenian Revolutionary Federation (Dashnaktsutyun), seemed to have solved that problem: The Church was no longer a barrier to the formation of political forces.

This is the case at present as well. Although the current government is essentially distant from the exploitation of religion for its political purposes, as it was practiced until recently by the Republican Party, the problem of teaching religion is no less important. What is it? An ordinary course of history, or an ideological component?

Teaching religion has always been problematic. To what extent does it contribute to the formation of a free citizen? What is the relationship between the education of a secular citizen and religious education? The majority of people in Armenia have a sense of faith and the right to freely express and practice it. As a negative example, it is possible to bring atheist education in the Soviet Union. According to the atheist education paradigm, man is naturally inclined to superstition, and the upbringing of scientific outlook is a matter of state importance. And teaching religion in a secular state may be a private issue? There are countries where this is the case. In Armenia, at least for now, it cannot be so. Religion has been important for Armenians for centuries and its realization affects the process of citizen’s formation.

In fact, traditional religions in national states are part of the citizen’s identity, through which most of them communicate with national citizenship. Thus, religious education does not contradict the formation of a free citizen, the problem is in the content and form of that education.

Just as school education, in the field of religion, the peculiarities of education can not be understood only in the the local context, as the local context of international trends and events are coupled with the global context. It is not merely a result of process of generating huge migration flows, but also globalization of religion when different religious teachings are gaining momentum in parallel with the rapid development of information flows. Of course, under conditions of globalization, knowledge should be taught about different religions, given that religions become transnational from the national. The Armenian self-awareness led to the importance of two prominent facts. The first is that a significant part of Armenians, mostly living in Turkey, is Muslim. Second: The fact that some Armenians were Catholic was accepted, but the culture of the Greco-Roman and Georgian-Armenians was ignored. How to perceive this diversity? It should be taught about by the religious education.

Teaching religion, I believe, should include history on gender as well. For example, the manifestations of sexual freedom in the Pavlikian and Tondrakian Movement, or vice versa. Legalization of polygamy by the Armenian Apostolic Church at certain historical stages.

In many European schools, education on religion is present in many ways, but it is impossible to speak of one common European approach to this issue. Organization and content of religious education or teaching about religion differs significantly from country to country.

In Armenia’s public education institutions, interest in religion is not exclusive and is in line with the European trends that are associated with the post-secular situation. Nonetheless, the way in which the school education on religion should be organized by methodological basis and approaches remains problematic not only in Armenia, but also in the countries of the European Union.

In European Union countries, the term “religious education” is used in pedagogical theory and practice. But it is a wide term, and experts prefer to define its content, such as “confessional religious education”, “extra-confessional religious education”, “inclusive religious education” and so on. In Armenia, they teach “church history”, but in reality we deal with a typical example of “confessional religious education.”

The point is that by saying “Church History” and “National History”, they understand mythological (narrative) stories in Armenia that are considered alternative to western rational and comprehensive stories.

In European countries, models and approaches to religion teaching are different:

a) attitude towards existing religious diversity, exclusivity (as in Armenia), involvement, pluralism;

b) the nature of church-state relations and the role of religious organizations in the educational field as confessional (as in Armenia) and non-confessional education;

c) the concept of “religious education” (learning into religion – (as in Armenia); learning about religion; learning through religion; “teaching about religion” and “teaching religion” in the framework of” interpretive approach);

d) the geographical-confessional principle of the historical features of the spread of Christianity (the rejection of the Armenian Church’s denomination by Christian principal directions);

e) The method of education organization: separatist and integrative religious education (in Armenia, in fact, the imposition of the Armenian Apostolic Church’s tradition on all religious, even traditional religious groups).

Thus, comparing the Armenian experience with the European, we see that the most extreme of the teaching model in the field of religion is adopted in Armenia. The main danger is that the chosen model is fraught with a high probability of human rights violations, which has been repeatedly mentioned, secondly, this model violates the freedom of religion, and the third — the right to education.

Modern theology generally rejects the view that religion is a feeling. It is pointed out that faith is God’s grace and it can not be taught, as it contradicts the idea of divine revelation. For religious reasons, faith can not be taught, nor can one learn to be a believer. According to the opinion of religious pedagogues, the idea of impossibility of faith does not contradict the idea of “learning” of religion, which can be acquired through socialization, family and church community, including by conveying religious traditions and perceptions. Due to these arguments, the teaching of religion was not fixed on faith.

Religion, accordingly, becomes the content of education, the subject of pedagogy and is perceived as transmitted knowledge, forms, attitudes, religious behavior patterns, and cultural elements. This distinction between faith and religious pedagogy is particularly important in Armenia, where faith and religious education are identifiable.

Knowledge of religion is necessary for the formation of civil consciousness. A citizen must understand religious diversity and form the idea of religious tolerance. As a representative of the Armenian nation, he must have an idea of the religious diversity of his nation, understanding it as a wealth.