By Harut Sassounian
With each passing day, while Armenia’s political and military situation grows increasingly precarious, Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan has been busy on Facebook trying to control the Armenian Apostolic Church. He does not seem to realize that his repeated interference in church affairs violates the constitutional principle of separation of church and state.
Moreover, over the past seven years, Pashinyan has violated hundreds of laws. He led Armenia to a disastrous defeat in the 2020 Artsakh War, abandoned Artsakh in 2023, and allowed Azeri troops to occupy parts of the Republic of Armenia in 2021 and 2022, despite his constitutional responsibility to defend the country’s borders. To make matters worse, when asked what he plans to do to remove the Azeri troops from Armenian territory, he shamelessly replied, “nothing.”
Under the guise of fake democracy, Pashinyan has become a de facto dictator: monopolizing power by controlling all branches of government, retaining the majority in parliament, appointing a compliant president, and ordering judges and security forces to comply with his illegal demands.
To divert public attention away from his political and military failures, Pashinyan decided to attack the Armenian Apostolic Church during a cabinet meeting on May 29. In the following weeks, he posted dozens of defamatory Facebook messages against the Church and clergy, often using vulgar language, without presenting a shred of evidence, which is a violation of Armenia’s libel laws. He repeatedly called for the resignation or removal of the Catholicos of All Armenians, Karekin II. Meanwhile, Anna Hakobyan, Pashinyan’s partner, followed suit with her own vulgar posts libeling high-ranking clergymen, calling them “the country’s chief pedophiles” and “black-vested maniac perverts.”
During a recent public gathering, Pashinyan attempted to explain why he and Anna were never married. He claimed that, fearing arrest by former leaders and worried the government would confiscate his home, he registered the house in Anna’s name. This was obviously a fabrication to deflect criticism, as he sensed that the public was questioning his claims of religious piety. Having violated the sanctity of marriage, he is the wrong person to preach chastity. The Bible says (Hebrews 13:4): “Marriage should be honored by all, and the marriage bed kept pure, for God will judge the adulterer and all the sexually immoral.” Moreover, neither the current nor any previous Armenian government has ever confiscated an arrestee’s personal property, including Pashinyan’s.
Pashinyan recently announced the formation of a committee to remove His Holiness. He even called on the public to gather in Etchmiadzin to force the Catholicos out. After the anticipated ouster, Pashinyan said he would appoint a married priest — a direct violation of church canons — as locum tenens (acting head of the Church), to be succeeded by an elected Catholicos under his revised Church Charter. This is not only a blatant breach of separation of church and state, but a complete shredding of the Constitution. A man who has failed miserably as Prime Minister now aims to depose the elected Catholicos, rewrite the Church Charter, appoint a married priest as locum tenens, and install a new Catholicos.
Bizarrely, Pashinyan insists on verifying the moral integrity of future Catholicos candidates, without explaining how he plans to accomplish this impossible task.
Here is a better suggestion for Pashinyan: Why not appoint himself as the new Catholicos so he can control both the state and church? Or appoint his partner, Anna Hakobyan, as Catholicos, to “modernize” the Church. He may even declare her a saint, sparing her from any moral scrutiny. One logistical problem: St. Anna needs to cancel her plan to study Chinese Philosophy in Beijing for the next two years.
With great arrogance, Pashinyan declared that he meets all the qualifications to lead his own committee tasked with removing the Catholicos. Committee members must:
n Be a baptized member of the Armenian Apostolic Church (though it’s unclear if Pashinyan himself is baptized);
n Believe in Jesus Christ;
n Have read the entire Bible at least once;
n Have observed Great Lent at least once in the past five years; and
n Pray daily.
He also stipulated that any celibate clergyman in the committee must not have broken his vow of celibacy. However, Pashinyan offers no explanation of how he will verify compliance with these criteria.
Although there were rumors last week that a Pashinyan-instigated crowd would converge on Etchmiadzin “to liberate” the Catholicosate from Karekin, that did not take place. Either the rumors were false or Pashinyan postponed the action after his opponents gathered to protect the Catholicos. Since Church supporters far outnumber Pashinyan’s followers, any confrontation between the two groups could lead to a bloodbath on the sacred grounds of Etchmiadzin.
A recent poll by the U.S. International Republican Institute found that 58% of the public in Armenia support the Church, up 10% from 2024. Meanwhile, 59% are dissatisfied with the Prime Minister’s performance, a 9% increase over the past year.
Pashinyan’s illegal and destructive plan has little chance of success. The Catholicos will probably refuse to resign. Pashinyan’s only remaining option would be to send his armed security agents to arrest the Catholicos on trumped-up charges. If the Catholicos is arrested, no replacement should be elected, allowing Karekin II to run the Church from his prison cell. What an embarrassment for the first Christian nation in the world!
Hopefully, none of these horrific scenarios come to pass. Pashinyan is the one who must resign. If he refuses, he should be removed immediately. Armenians cannot wait until the next parliamentary elections in June 2026. By then, Armenia may no longer exist, since Pashinyan is dismantling it piece by piece, day after day.
