My Turn
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:
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“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!