Pashinyan’s attacks on the Church risk instigating civil war
With his approval ratings plummeting ahead of the June 2026 parliamentary elections, Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan is targeting the Catholicos of All Armenians. He wrongly assumes he can court public favor, disregarding the fact that most Armenians, at home and in the diaspora, remain devoted to the Armenian Apostolic Church.
Last week, Pashinyan announced his intention to replace Catholicos Karekin II with a more compliant cleric, citing clerical celibacy as justification. The prime minister escalated his assault through a series of incendiary Facebook posts. Here are some examples:
- He urged his followers to ‘liberate’ the Catholicosate and elect a new Catholicos: “The sacred Armenian Apostolic Church must elect a new Catholicos, whose moral conduct will be verified and confirmed before the Catholicosate elections. I call on the faithful followers of the sacred Armenian Apostolic Church to come together to liberate the Seat of the Catholicosate with love and in a Christian manner and elect a truly holy clergyman as Catholicos of All Armenians.”
- He declared: “The sacred Armenian Apostolic Church will be returned to Jesus Christ and the Armenian people. Ktrich Nersisyan [inappropriately referring to Karekin II by his lay name] must vacate the Seat of the Catholicosate.”
- He proposed to “take active steps to liberate the Seat of the Catholicosate and organize new Catholicosate elections by creating a ‘Coordinating Group’ to manage the organizational issues of the mentioned agenda.” Pashinyan described the qualifications of the future members of the “Coordinating Group” as follows:
-
- “Believe wholeheartedly in our living Lord, Jesus Christ”;
- “Have read the Bible in its entirety at least once”;
- “Have observed Great Lent at least once in the past five years”;
- “Pray daily”;
- “Members may include men, women, laypeople and clergy. Celibate clergy must not have violated their vow of celibacy.”
-
Pashinyan added: “I will select the first 10 members of the ‘Coordination Group,’ based on conversations evaluating their alignment with the stated criteria. Thereafter, the group will determine its expansion procedures, structure and other matters.” He invited those interested in joining to email their name, phone number and profession to nikolpashinyan@gmail.com.
Meanwhile, Anna Hakobyan, the prime minister’s partner—who has shamelessly described Armenian clergymen as “the country’s chief pedophiles” and “black-vested maniac perverts”—made the surprising revelation she will be moving to China for the next two years to study Chinese Philosophy at Beijing Normal University. This was announced last week by the charity My Step Foundation, which she currently leads as executive director after previously serving as board chair. It remains unclear whether she will leave her four children in Armenia during this time.
Hakobyan is often mistakenly referred to as the prime minister’s “wife” and Armenia’s “first lady.” She is neither his wife (since they are not married) nor first lady, as that title is reserved for the president (or prime minister)’s spouse. Yet, Hakobyan travels around the world at taxpayers’ expense and is escorted by government bodyguards while representing Armenia at international meetings and conferences.
To show that Pashinyan is violating Armenia’s Constitution, let us review Articles 17 and 18. Article 17 mandates church-state separation: “Religious organizations shall be separate from the state.” Most people misinterpret this provision, thinking that the clergy have no right to be involved in political affairs. That is not correct. As Armenian citizens, the clergy enjoy the same rights and obligations as all other citizens, such as voting and participating in political matters. The state may intervene only if laws are violated.
Article 18 of the Constitution grants the Armenian Apostolic Church a special status: “The Republic of Armenia recognizes the exclusive mission of the sacred Armenian Apostolic Church, as a national church, in the spiritual life of the Armenian people, in the development of their national culture and preservation of their national identity.”
No one should be surprised if the Prime Minister decides to delete Articles 17 and 18 from his revised version of the Constitution next year.
By urging his followers “to converge” on Etchmiadzin and “liberate” the Catholicosate from Karekin II, Pashinyan risks instigating a civil war. The Church’s millions of faithful vastly outnumber his supporters. Should the Catholicos call on Armenians to come to Etchmiadzin and defend the Catholicosate, a violent confrontation could erupt on holy ground.
Nearly every diocese at home and abroad has issued written statements condemning Pashinyan’s intervention in the church’s internal affairs. To make a definitive decision on this controversy, Karekin II plans to soon convene the “National Ecclesiastical Assembly”—the highest body of the Armenian Apostolic Church—comprising the Catholicos of All Armenians, Catholicos of the Holy See of Great House of Cilicia, the Patriarchs of Jerusalem and Constantinople, bishops and primates from around the world, members of the Supreme Spiritual Council of Etchmiadzin and delegates from all dioceses.
By targeting the Catholicos—an act cheered on by Azerbaijan’s Sheikh al-Islam and Azeri media—Pashinyan appears oblivious to the damage he is inflicting on his own popularity in the 2026 elections, while bolstering Karekin II’s public support. When faced with a showdown between a faltering politician and their spiritual leader, most Armenians will naturally side with His Holiness. The public will demand the resignation of the prime minister, not the Catholicos.
Harut Sassounian
“PASHINYAN’S ATTACKS ON THE CHURCH RISK INSTIGATING CIVIL WAR” alerts Harout Sassounian.
The PM is not attacking the Armenian Church. The Armenian Church, whether Apostolic, Catholic or Evangelical is not under attack. The PM is attacking Catholicos Karekin II for having broken the vows for celibacy he voluntarily took. Apparently, Harout thinks some celibate priests breaking vows for celibacy does not warrant forcefully raising the issue.
Harout Sassounian also warns attacking Catholicos Karekin II risks instigating civil war.
What Harout really is implying is the following: the faithful have to accept that some celibate priests, the princes of the Armenian church, breaking their vows for celibacy and chastity is a fact of life and the faithful rather pretend that piety is kept in their house of worship fearing that civil war may break otherwise.
There is not one shred of evidence of that. The Catholicos is not infallible, the clergy and the Armenian Apostolic Church are not beyond reproach and criticism. But without providing any proof, Pashinyan’s and his girlfriend’s accusations are just slander. Pashinyan and his equally provocative girlfriend have resorted to the most offensive slander and smear campaigns against Catholicos Karekin II, other clergy, and the Armenian Apostolic Church as an institution, simply because they “dared” to criticise his disastrous and detrimental policies on Artsakh, in Armenia, his dictatorial tendencies and his corruption, among many other things. Pashinyan sees any criticism to himself and his policies, as a challenge to his rule, and he resorts to ad hominem insults, slander and threats. Such vile language and threats against the Church and its clergy, has not been seen since the Bolsheviks. Pashinyan has already deeply offended, by questioning Armenia’s national symbols and the Armenian Genocide, but now has offended even further by attacking the Armenian Church. Pashinyan has an agenda and a vendetta against this institution and its clergy, including Karekin II, not only because they have criticised him, also because he regards them as the biggest opposition and threat to himself. He wants to silence any opposition to himself, whether it is the Armenian Apostolic Church, opposition political parties and politicians, independent media, NGOs, etc. Simple as that. This guy and his misdeeds are indefensible.
Apelian has to read my column again. In his blind worship of Pashinyan, Apelian willingly distorts all facts.
I never said that breaking the vow of celibacy was OK. I wrote in my previous column, that all clergy, regardless of rank, have to comply with the vow of celibacy and all other religious and moral pronciples. However, that is not Pashinyan’s purpose.
As I have explained it, Pashinyan has a completely different agenda for raisong this issue now:
1) To distract the people’s attention from his many shotcomings and betrayals of Armenia’s national interests.
2) To attack the Catholicos and the Armenian Church for resisting Pashinyan’s betrayals and replace the Catholicos with a more compliant Catholicos.
3) Preparing the ground for his success in next June’s parliamentary elections by eliminating his opposition, the Armenian Church.
4) The Rumors about the Catholocos had been circulating for a couple of decades. Pashinyan and everyone else have heard about it. Why is he raising it now on the eve of the elections? Did the celibacy issue not bother him all these years. He is being dishonest by using the celibacy as a trojan horse.
5) It is very unbecoming of Pashnyan and Anna Hakobyan to use such vulgar language against the Catholicos and clergy. There are laws in Armenia against that kind of vulgar language. The Clergy should sue Nikol and Anna, but will there be a judge that will dare to defend the truth in court? I seriously doubt it. Any judge that does the right think will be sacked by Nikol.
6) What Nikol and Anna have written about the Catholicos and other clergy is not only vulgar, but also libelous. They have not presented a shred of evidence to their defamatory statements.
Regardless of what Pashinyan is or is not doing, do you really think this is the time to raise such sensitive issues when the country is in such a chaotic state with a population that is highly polarized politically with a judicial system that is subservient to the ruling party in a society that, more or less, is run based on nepotism? True leaders and patriots are supposed to calm things down when the situation gets chaotic and strive for unity but based on Pashinyan’s divisive and erratic and random, but calculated, acts we can clearly see he is engaging in such activities with accusations and vitriol which have no place and relevance in such volatile political atmosphere because he feels this is pretty much the end of the road for him and he is resorting to such acts for an ulterior motive. He has targeted the leader of the Armenian Church because he wants to bring under his control one of the last national institutions that could be a threat to his rule and existence. He understands the power of the church whose leader is not in line with his destructive politics, in particular regarding Artsakh and its uprooted population after millenniums of continual existence there, a leader whom he considers as an obstacle in achieving his fraudulent peace agreement with our fascist enemy to save his own skin. Pashinyan is a narcissist and a con man just like Trump who did everything in his power, from his racist remarks to bribery and blackmail, to return to the office of presidency just to avoid prison as a felon indicted for 34 criminal charges. That is what is happening here and not whether or not the Catholicos has or has not violated any church rule!